I have never been more grateful for a sat nav's patience than I was driving from Malaga Airport to our villa in Benahavis. Three roundabouts in, I was already convinced I had mastered Spanish roadcraft. By the seventh, I had accidentally committed to a slip road heading toward Marbella with the same blind confidence I bring to choosing wine in restaurants. My partner sat beside me, making that particular face she saves for my navigational triumphs. Forty minutes of scenic backtracking later, we finally crawled up the hillside toward our stone-walled finca, me vowing never again to trust my instincts over technology.

The villa sat perched above a valley of cork oaks and olive groves, all terracotta tiles and whitewashed walls, with a pool that caught the afternoon light like someone had planned it personally for my Instagram. But the real discovery came the next morning, wandering down to the village proper.

Benahavis itself clings to a mountainside with the stubbornness of a goat refusing to move. Narrow streets barely wide enough for the mopeds that buzz through like determined wasps. I stopped at a corner cafe for coffee, still slightly dazed from the previous day's driving adventure, and found myself adopted by Paco, the proprietor, who had apparently decided my Spanish needed immediate and vigorous correction.

"You say 'grathias,'" he informed me, rolling the 'r' with theatrical precision, his moustache quivering with the effort. "Not 'gracias.' You sound like a tourist." I am, I wanted to reply. Very much so. Instead I practised my 'r's until my coffee went cold and Paco declared me "acceptable for a British person," which I chose to receive as high praise.

His wife Maria emerged from the kitchen periodically to contradict his pronunciation lessons and feed me tiny almond biscuits she claimed were "nothing special" despite being the most delicious things I had eaten in months. They bickered amiably about whether I should visit the castle ruins or the river walk, Paco insisting the walk was "for old people and Germans," Maria swatting him with a tea towel.

Down at the tiny mercado, I encountered Concepcion, who sold vegetables with the authoritative manner of someone dispensing medical advice. She examined my tomato selection with visible disappointment, removed three from my bag, replaced them with superior specimens, and charged me what I suspect was a local's price out of sheer pity. "You were going to choose those?" she asked, genuinely baffled. "Those are for sauce. You want these for eating." I nodded meekly, suddenly thirteen years old again and being told off by my grandmother.

The pool man came on Wednesday, a wiry chap called Ernesto who spoke rapid English learned, he explained, from watching subtitled episodes of 'Fawlty Towers.' He found my nationality endlessly entertaining and kept quoting Basil at me while adjusting chlorine levels. "I speak English very well," he announced, straight-faced. "I learned it from a very strange hotel." I did not have the heart to explain the irony.

By week's end, I found myself lingering at Paco's cafe not for the coffee but for the company, for Maria's biscuits and their gentle interrogation about whether British people truly ate beans for breakfast. I had arrived chasing sunshine and a private pool. I stayed for the characters who treated my foreignness not as inconvenience but as a minor project worth their attention, like a wobbly table that needed propping up with folded cardboard until it stood properly.

On our final morning, Paco presented me with a hand-drawn map of the route to the airport, annotated with warnings about my "favourite" roundabout and a note reading "GRATHIAS" in capital letters. I folded it carefully into my pocket, already knowing I would keep it long after the tan fades.