I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I put the postcode into my sat nav and it directed me to a field full of very unimpressed cows. Turns out "Nowe Warpno" and what I can only describe as "middle of nowhere" are not, in fact, the same place. Forty-five minutes of increasingly narrow Polish lanes later, my partner was giving me that look. You know the one. The "you said this would be relaxing" look. We eventually found our Novasol cottage by the Szczecin Lagoon, and I have never been so relieved to see a proper roof.

The cottage itself was spot on. Wooden beams, a kitchen that actually had more than one blunt knife, and a little terrace where you could sit with a beer and watch the water go by. But let me tell you, after that journey, we were absolutely starving. The local shop in Nowe Warpno village was our first port of call. Small place, friendly woman behind the counter who spoke roughly three words of English and communicated mainly through pointing and encouraging nods. We came away with kielbasa, some local cheese that I later learned was called "korycinski", a bag of potatoes that still had actual soil on them, and what I thought was butter but turned out to be some sort of fermented cream spread. That first evening was a lesson in humility. I had grand plans for a proper Polish feast. The reality was slightly burnt sausage, potatoes that were somehow both underdone and falling apart, and me standing over a smoking frying pan wondering where it all went wrong. My partner very kindly said it was "rustic". We ate every bite, mostly out of stubbornness and hunger.

The next morning, I was determined to do better. There is a small market that sets up near the harbour on certain days, mostly local pensioners selling whatever their gardens have produced. I bought tomatoes that actually tasted of something, fresh dill, cucumbers, and some smoked fish from a man who had clearly caught them himself. That lunch was a triumph. Simple open sandwiches with the fish, tomatoes, dill, and that fermented cream stuff which I had now properly identified and actually rather liked. We ate on the terrace with the lagoon in front of us, and I felt genuinely pleased with myself. Possibly too pleased, as it turned out.

That evening I attempted pierogi. From scratch. In a holiday cottage kitchen with limited workspace and my own limited patience. The filling of mashed potato and cheese went fine. The dough was where things unravelled. Too sticky, then too dry, then somehow both at once. I ended up with these lumpy, misshapen things that looked like they had been made by someone having some sort of episode. They tasted decent enough, if you closed your eyes and concentrated on the filling. My partner took a photo that I suspect will resurface at inconvenient moments for years to come.

By day three, I had settled into a better rhythm. Breakfasts became a proper ritual. Fresh bread from the bakery in the village, proper Polish poppy seed rolls when they had them, good butter that I now correctly identified, and strong coffee. Lunches were simple assemblies of market finds. Dinners, I learned to keep straightforward. The local fish, grilled with lemon and dill. The kielbasa, cooked more carefully and served with decent mustard. Potatoes, boiled simply and dressed with that fermented cream which I had grown genuinely fond of.

There was a small restaurant near the harbour where we ate one evening, mostly because I needed a night off from my own cooking. Nothing fancy, just solid Polish food. Bigos, the hunter's stew, which put my efforts to shame. Fried herring with onions. Properly made pierogi, smooth and crescent-shaped, mocking me gently from the plate. I ate them with good grace and a mental note to stick to what I could manage.

What I came to appreciate about that week was how the food anchored everything. The trips to the shop and market, the planning of meals around what was fresh and available, the slow improvement of my own efforts. It was not the polished self-catering of someone who actually knows what they are doing. It was messier, more honest. Burnt sausage and lumpy pierogi included.

On our last morning, I made a final breakfast of everything we had left. The last of the bread, cheese, tomatoes, a bit of the fish. We ate slowly, watching the lagoon, not particularly wanting to leave. I thought about that sat nav mistake, the cows, the smoking frying pan. The whole slightly chaotic week. And I thought that sometimes the best holidays are not the ones where everything goes smoothly. They are the ones where you figure things out as you go, where you learn to identify your butter correctly, where you make peace with your limitations and eat the results anyway.

We packed up, I checked the cottage three times for forgotten items, and we drove away full of good bread and slightly absurd memories. I would go back tomorrow. Though I might leave the pierogi to the professionals.