I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to unlock the wrong door. There we were, me and my partner, standing in Stezyca with a wheelie case full of Tesco teabags and a sat nav that had given up three roundabouts ago. I marched straight up to a charming wooden cottage, jiggled the key, muttered something about Polish engineering, and only after a full two minutes of struggle did the actual owner of said cottage emerge from his garden to explain, very politely, that our place was next door. The one with the number matching our booking. The one I had walked straight past.

Still, first impressions of the house itself more than made up for my geographical embarrassment. It had that lovely solid feel you do not get in new builds, with timber everywhere and a kitchen that immediately made me think I could pretend to be one of those people who cooks properly on holiday. You know the type. They come back with stories of perfect pierogi and casually mention the local mushrooms they foraged. I am not one of those people, but the kitchen was so well equipped that I felt briefly inspired to try.

The first evening we did the sensible thing and walked to the local shop for supplies. This is where I must praise Polish corner shops, because within five minutes I had acquired more varieties of smoked sausage than I knew existed, a slab of white cheese that the woman behind the counter assured me was "very good, very traditional," and some tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes. The bread situation was equally thrilling. I bought a loaf that could have doubled as a weapon, crust so crackly it practically announced itself when you touched it.

Back at the cottage I attempted my first self-catering triumph: bigos. How hard could it be? It is basically cabbage and meat and time. I had two of those things. What I did not have was patience, and after an hour of what I considered adequate simmering, we sat down to something that tasted perfectly pleasant but would have caused any Polish grandmother to weep into her apron. My partner was kind enough to call it "rustic." I called it "learning."

Breakfast the next morning was more successful, mostly because it involved less cooking and more assembly. The local eggs, bought from a house down the lane with an honesty box, were the most orange-yolked things I have ever seen. Fried in butter with that proper bread and some of the white cheese grated over the top, it felt like the sort of morning that justifies the entire concept of self-catering holidays. We ate on the terrace with our mugs of tea, watching a cat that definitely did not belong to us but had strong opinions about being fed.

The Tuesday market in nearby Kartuzy became the highlight of the week. I use "nearby" loosely; it was a drive that involved me confidently taking a wrong turn past a lake I definitely recognised from the correct route twenty minutes later. But the market itself was worth every roundabout. Stall after stall of things I could not always identify. Old women selling jars of pickled everything. A man with a wheel of cheese the size of a car tyre, cutting wedges with a wire. I bought wild mushrooms dried in string bags, convinced I would rehydrate them into something magnificent. I bought honey that the seller told me came from bees kept in the forest. I bought more sausage, because one cannot have too much.

That evening I attempted pierogi. The less said the better, though I will say that my dumpling sealing technique needs serious work. They looked like small sad pillows. They tasted fine, especially fried in butter afterwards with onions, but presentation was not my strong suit. My partner photographed them anyway, presumably for blackmail purposes.

By the end of the week I had settled into a comfortable rhythm. Mornings were eggs and cheese and that dangerous bread. Lunches were whatever we had picked up, often eaten on walks around the local lakes. Dinners were my ongoing education in Polish home cooking, with results ranging from genuinely decent to "let us get chips tomorrow to recover." I never did master those pierogi. The dried mushrooms became a very nice soup on the final night, which I consider my personal victory.

On our last morning I stood in that kitchen, slightly sad to be leaving, and made one final breakfast. The cat had returned, presumably hoping for more eggs. The bread was down to its final heel. I had just enough cheese for one more grating. It was not fancy, none of it, but it tasted of the holiday in that way restaurant meals rarely do. The wrong door, the questionable bigos, the market I got lost finding, the pierogi that looked like they needed medical attention. All of it.

We left the remaining sausage for the next guests. Seemed only fair. They might need it more than us.