I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got spectacularly lost somewhere between Nijmegen and a village that Google Maps confidently told me was Afferden. Three roundabouts, one deeply unhelpful sheep, and a tense moment where I genuinely considered asking a cyclist for directions in my GCSE Dutch, I finally spotted the farmhouse. I'd driven past it twice. The sat nav had apparently decided I needed a scenic tour of every cul-de-sac in northern Limburg.

The property itself, when I actually managed to arrive at it, was one of those solid brick farmhouse conversions that the Dutch do so brilliantly. Thick walls, a proper kitchen with actual space to move about, and a covered terrace that immediately made me think of long breakfasts with too much coffee. I dumped my bags, opened a beer I'd bought at a service station in a panic, and stood on that terrace feeling very pleased with myself. This was going to be a week of serious eating, and I had plans.

Morning number one, I marched into Afferden with visions of assembling the perfect breakfast from local markets. The village shop, it turns out, is more of a practical affair than a artisanal food hall. I bought eggs that were genuinely free range, which I could tell because one still had a bit of straw on it, some excellent butter, and bread that was, frankly, a bit denser than I'd expected. Back at the farmhouse, I attempted my first proper self-catering triumph: a Dutch-style omelette with ham and cheese. I burned the bottom while the top remained weirdly liquid, a culinary magic trick I didn't know I possessed. Ate it anyway, standing at the kitchen counter, feeling very professional.

The covered terrace became my headquarters. I discovered that Limburg mornings are excellent for slow breakfasts that turn into lunches. The local supermarket in nearby Gennep, which I found after another minor navigational embarrassment, became my hunting ground. They had these little spice cakes, ontbijtkoek, which I became genuinely obsessed with. Thick slices with far too much butter, eaten while reading a book I'd brought and kept not finishing. I told myself I was living like a local. The locals, I suspect, do not eat quite this much ontbijtkoek.

I did attempt to visit a proper market, because every self-respecting British holidaymaker needs to come home with tales of local produce. The weekly market in Boxmeer was my target. I arrived an hour before it finished, which any sensible person knows is when the good stuff is either gone or being discounted by stallholders who want to pack up. I bought cheese I couldn't pronounce, some excellent tomatoes that actually tasted of something, and a sausage that I later realised was probably meant for cooking rather than immediate consumption. No regrets. Ate half of it in the car park like a absolute animal.

Back at the farmhouse, my cooking attempts became more ambitious and no more successful. I tried to make stamppot, that Dutch mashed potato and vegetable dish, because how hard could it be? Very hard, apparently, if you get the potato variety wrong and end up with something closer to wallpaper paste with kale in it. I ate it on the terrace with more of that service station beer, watching the evening light do something impossibly pretty across the Limburg fields, and decided that failure tasted perfectly acceptable in such surroundings.

The kitchen at the property had one of those proper gas hobs that makes you feel like a serious cook even when you're not. I used it to make increasingly elaborate breakfasts, each one taking longer than the last. Soft-boiled eggs with soldiers. Eggs Benedict that I absolutely ruined but ate with grim determination. One morning I spent forty minutes making pancakes that stuck to the pan so thoroughly I considered throwing the whole thing away and buying a new one. The terrace saw some dark moments, but also some genuinely excellent ones: a simple supper of local cheese, bread, and tomatoes so ripe they barely held together, eaten as the light faded and the bats came out.

I never did master Dutch cooking. But I mastered the art of eating it slowly, outside, with no particular urgency to be anywhere else. The farmhouse kitchen saw my failures and my small triumphs, and the covered terrace witnessed me at my most contentedly greedy. That's the memory I'm keeping: not perfection, but the particular pleasure of getting it slightly wrong in exactly the right place.