I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when I put the sat nav postcode into my phone and ended up in a petrol station forecourt just outside Seville, arguing with a man selling watermelons about whether I could fit a twelve-kilo beauty into my hire car's already overflowing boot. I'd packed for self-catering with the enthusiasm of someone who'd watched too many Rick Stein programmes and somehow believed I was going to transform into a Spanish grandmother the moment I crossed the threshold of the Rosal de la Frontera.

The journey from Seville airport had been straightforward enough until that point, winding through olive groves that stretched to the horizon like a grey-green sea. I'd stopped at a Mercadona in a town whose name I immediately forgot, loading up with enough provisions to survive a siege. Chorizo, manchego, tinned piquillo peppers, three types of olive oil because the labels were pretty, and a bag of bomba rice that I had absolutely no idea how to cook properly. The watermelon was an impulse purchase. Everything about this trip was going to be an impulse purchase, apparently.

Arriving at the Rosal de la Frontera felt like stumbling into someone's very private, very beautiful secret. The property sits among rolling hills dotted with cork oaks and the occasional sheep that looks at you with the weary resignation of someone who's seen too many British tourists attempt to speak Spanish. My first impression was of space and silence, broken only by the distant clinking of goat bells and my own wheezing as I hauled carrier bags up the path. The kitchen, when I finally found it, was blessedly modern and well-equipped, which immediately made me feel guilty about the sheer idiocy of what I'd bought at the supermarket.

I unpacked my haul with the solemnity of a priest preparing communion. The chorizo went on a wooden board. The manchego was unwrapped and left to breathe. I opened the local wine I'd picked up, a tempranillo from somewhere embarrassingly close by, and poured myself a glass that was probably too large for someone who still needed to cook dinner. Then I made my first attempt at proper Spanish cooking, which involved burning garlic in olive oil so aggressively that I had to open every window and explain myself in broken Spanish to a passing neighbour who was probably wondering if the English were finally self-immolating in protest at Brexit.

The next morning I drove to the local market, which happens twice weekly in the nearest village. This was where the real education began. I'd thought myself so clever with my supermarket sweep, but watching actual Andalusians buy actual food for actual cooking was deeply humbling. An elderly woman selected tomatoes with the care of a jeweller assessing diamonds, sniffing the stems and pressing gently for ripeness. A man in a faded Real Betis shirt bought a whole fish with its eyes still bright and glassy, then had it cleaned and filleted while he waited, chatting to the fishmonger about I knew not what but suspected involved football and family grievances. I bought bread from a baker who'd been up since four, and it was still warm enough to steam slightly in the paper bag.

That evening I attempted a proper tortilla, using market eggs with almost orange yolks and potatoes I'd fried with more patience than I usually possess. It was not perfect. It was probably not even good by local standards. But eaten on the terrace as the light faded and the swallows began their evening circuits, with that local tempranillo and some of the manchego I'd been too intimidated to serve to anyone but myself, it tasted like something I'd actually made rather than assembled. The watermelon sat uncut in the fridge for three days, too large and too ridiculous to tackle without an audience. I eventually hacked into it with a bread knife and ate it standing at the sink, juice running down my wrists, laughing at myself for the pretension of thinking I could ever be anything other than an enthusiastic amateur in this landscape of proper cooks and proper food.

I left the Rosal de la Frontera with a cooler bag of leftover cheese, a newfound respect for anyone who can identify a ripe watermelon without assistance, and the certain knowledge that my next self-catering holiday would begin with a much smaller shopping list and much lower expectations of my own culinary transformation.