The drive from Malaga Airport to Periana was supposed to take an hour and a quarter, which in my experience means either fifty minutes or three hours depending on how many times I take the wrong exit. I managed both, somehow, circling a roundabout near Velez-Malaga three times while arguing with a sat nav that insisted I turn left into what was clearly a dry riverbed. By the time I rattled up the winding road to the villa, my hire car smelled of petrol, panic, and the bag of churros I'd stress-eaten at a roadside cafe, leaving a trail of cinnamon sugar across my lap that made me look like I'd been attacked by a doughnut.

The villa sat perched on a hillside with views that genuinely stopped me breathing for a moment, olive groves rolling away like a green sea toward distant mountains. But I barely registered it because I was already obsessing about dinner. The self-catering life demands strategy, and my strategy was currently limited to a jar of olives I'd bought at the airport and a vague plan to "find local stuff."

The kitchen at the villa turned out to be the sort of generous, slightly chaotic space that makes you want to cook immediately. Terracotta tiles, wooden beams, a fridge that hummed with optimistic ambition. I unpacked my single bag of groceries with the theatrical sadness of someone who'd clearly underestimated the situation. The nearest proper shop, I discovered after a frantic phone call to the property manager, was back down in Periana village, a ten-minute drive that felt like ten minutes of shame for my poor planning.

The village mercado the next morning saved me. It was one of those compact Andalusian affairs where everyone seems to know everyone and the tomatoes actually smell of something. I bought bread from a woman who sliced it with a knife that had probably been in her family longer than I'd been alive, cheese that she described as "fuerte" with a warning look, and chorizo that glistened with proper paprika oil. A man selling honey from the back of a van talked me into two jars by simply looking disappointed when I hesitated. I also acquired a bag of almonds still in their fuzzy skins, which I spent an embarrassing twenty minutes trying to shell with a rolling pin later that evening, sending fragments across the kitchen like edible shrapnel.

My first attempt at cooking proper Andalusian food was a gazpacho that I blended with excessive confidence and insufficient garlic. It tasted, if I'm honest, like cold tomato water with regret. I ate it on the terrace at sunset, pretending to myself that this was exactly the rustic simplicity I'd intended, while swallows dived through the warm air and a neighbour's dog judged me from an adjacent wall. The bread and cheese rescued the meal, as bread and cheese always do, and I made a mental note to buy more of both the next day.

By day three I'd settled into a rhythm that revolved entirely around food. Morning trips to the village for whatever looked good, afternoons attempting to recreate things I'd eaten in Malaga years ago, evenings grilling fish on the villa's barbecue with a technique best described as "hopeful." The local supermarket, smaller than a British corner shop, yielded surprises: boquerones in vinegar, proper Valencian rice, aubergines so fresh they practically introduced themselves. I bought too many peppers, as one always does, and spent an evening roasting them until their skins blackened and peeled away, filling the kitchen with that sweet, smoky smell that makes you feel like a proper cook even when you're mostly just burning things carefully.

My masterpiece, if I can call it that, came on the fifth night. I'd found rabbit at the butcher's after some elaborate pointing and miming, and I slow-cooked it with tomatoes, rosemary from a wild bush I'd spotted on a walk, and those too-many peppers. It fell off the bone. I ate it with my fingers standing at the kitchen counter, too impatient to find a plate, drinking a local wine that cost less than a London coffee and tasted of cherries and dust and something I couldn't name. The cinnamon sugar was long gone from my clothes by then, replaced by olive oil stains and tomato splatters, and I looked, I suspect, exactly like someone who'd spent a week cooking badly and eating well in the Andalusian hills.

I left the remaining honey on the counter for the next guests, a small offering to the self-catering gods who'd watched over my culinary fumbling with what I choose to believe was affection.