I have never been so relieved to see a sign for "Col" in my life, and that includes the time I got lost in IKEA trying to find the exit. The journey from Ljubljana Airport had been straightforward enough until I decided, with the confidence of a person who had never driven in Slovenia before, that I could take a shortcut. Forty minutes of increasingly narrow lanes, one angry goose, and a minor incident involving a low stone wall later, I finally spotted the village sign and nearly wept into my steering wheel.

The stone house sat at the end of a track, looking exactly as it did in the photos but somehow more solid, more real. I fumbled with the key box, dropped the code sheet, and spent a good five minutes trying to unlock what turned out to be a garden shed. The actual front door was around the corner. I will not be including this footage in any future holiday slideshows.

By the time I wrestled my suitcase inside, the afternoon light was doing that golden thing it does in this corner of Goriska, filtering through the trees and making everything look like a promotional video for rural living. I stood in the kitchen and had one of those moments. You know the ones. Where you think, perhaps I should do this more often. Slow down. Cook proper meals. Be the sort of person who buys fresh herbs and knows what to do with them.

The kitchen was surprisingly well-equipped, which immediately put me under pressure. A proper stove, decent knives, enough pots to suggest someone actually cooks here rather than just reheating things. I made a cup of tea and surveyed my domain. There was a small terrace with a table, a view down toward the valley, and a silence so complete I could hear a woodpecker somewhere in the distance doing his important woodpecker business.

That first evening I kept things simple. Too simple, if I am honest. Pasta with a jar of sauce I had panic-bought at a service station near the airport. I ate it on the terrace with a glass of wine, telling myself this was rustic charm rather than culinary failure. The stars came out in force, unbothered by light pollution, and I made a resolution. Tomorrow I would do better. I would find the local market. I would buy fresh produce. I would become, however briefly, a person who knows their way around a Slovenian kitchen.

Morning brought mist and the realisation that I had forgotten coffee. This is how I found myself in Ajdovscina before nine o'clock, following my nose to a bakery where I pointed at various items with the enthusiasm of someone who had not yet learned the local words for "with nuts" or "surprisingly salty." I emerged with a paper bag of pastries, some very dark bread, and a small jar of honey that the woman behind the counter had pressed upon me with what I chose to interpret as confidence in my ability to appreciate it.

The market was smaller than I had built it up to be, but no less wonderful for that. Stalls of tomatoes that actually smelled like tomatoes, bunches of herbs tied with string, a man selling cheese from the back of a van and cutting samples with a pocket knife. I bought too much, as one does. A thick slab of prsut, because the vendor let me try it and suddenly resistance seemed pointless. Some soft cheese I could not properly name. Courgettes with their flowers still attached, which I had always wanted to cook and never had the courage. A bottle of local olive oil, because the woman selling it described it with such passion that I felt rude not purchasing some.

Back at the house, I spread my treasures across the kitchen table and felt briefly like a proper person. The kind who has plans. I stuffed the courgette flowers with the soft cheese, battered them in a mixture I improvised based on half-remembered television programmes, and fried them in a pan with more oil than was probably necessary. They fell apart. Three of them. The fourth held together just long enough for me to photograph it, eat it standing at the stove, and decide that this was absolutely the life for me.

The prsut I kept simpler, pairing it with the dark bread and some tomatoes sliced roughly and dressed with that passionate olive oil. I ate this on the terrace again, because the weather permitted it and because I was becoming attached to that particular view. A bottle of local white wine, something crisp and minerally from one of the nearby Vipava Valley producers, completed the picture. I had not planned this. I had planned elaborate meals, proper cooking, the kind of thing you tell people about afterwards. Instead I was eating bread and ham and tomatoes, drinking wine in the afternoon, and feeling utterly content.

The second market trip I approached with more strategy and less enthusiasm, which was a mistake. I bought ingredients for a specific recipe I had found on my phone, something involving beans and sausage and careful timing. The beans took forever to soften. The sausage released more fat than expected. The kitchen filled with smoke at one point, though I maintain this was a problem with the extractor fan rather than any error on my part. I ate the result on the terrace as darkness fell, accompanied by more wine and the distant sound of someone else's dog barking. It was edible. It was, in certain lights, even enjoyable. But it was not the simple perfection of bread and ham and tomatoes still warm from the sun.

By my final morning, I had settled into something like a routine. Early trip to the bakery, where the woman now greeted me with recognition if not exactly warmth. Coffee on the terrace with whatever pastry I had selected through my established pointing system. A slow consideration of what the day might hold, which usually involved some walking, some reading, and eventually some cooking that I approached with lowered expectations and improved results.

My last dinner was a return to simplicity. The remaining prsut, the last of the cheese, bread toasted in the pan when I realised the toaster was not working. A final courgette flower, which I cooked with even more oil and slightly more patience, and which held together just long enough. I ate slowly, watching the light change over the valley, already thinking about what I might cook next time and knowing, with the gentle certainty that comes from a few days of doing very little very slowly, that there would definitely be a next time.