I have never been so relieved to see a set of wooden gates in my entire life. After a flight that involved a screaming toddler, a rental car queue that moved slower than Spanish lunchtime, and a sat-nav that insisted Villa Lua was somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean rather than Sant Josep de sa Talaia, I finally crunched up the gravel drive. I stepped out, stretched my legs, and promptly dropped my entire bag of airport snacks onto the hot stones. Crisps everywhere. A lizard darted out, had a look, and clearly decided even he had standards. Welcome to Ibiza.

The villa itself, though, stopped me mid-crouch. Whitewashed walls, that classic Ibizan cubic shape, and a terrace that seemed to float above the hills. I could see straight down to the sea glittering in the distance. For a moment I forgot about my humiliation, my hunger, and the fact that my hire car now smelled strongly of broken biscuits.

The kitchen was my first proper destination. I am not a cook. I am a person who owns three spices and considers beans on toast a balanced meal. But something about that space - all terracotta tiles and proper wooden beams and a fridge that actually worked - made me want to try. There was a proper gas hob, not the electric nightmare I tolerate at home. A decent knife block. Even a pestle and mortar that looked like it had actually been used rather than displayed.

I had planned to be sensible. I had written a list. But my first evening, exhausted and overconfident, I attempted a Spanish omelette using three eggs and some questionable olive oil I found in a cupboard. It stuck. It burned. It became something between food and abstract art. I ate it standing at the counter in near-darkness, too proud to admit defeat, while cicadas screamed their encouragement outside.

Morning brought salvation in the form of Sant Josep's small market. I walked down through lanes that smelled of jasmine and warm dust, clutching a string bag like a proper local. The market was not large or touristy, just a few stalls with tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, rough-skinned lemons, and bread from a bakery I never did locate. I bought too much, as always. A wedge of Manchego that I nibbled while walking back. Some tiny potatoes that the woman said were perfect for boiling with salt. She was right, though I did not discover this until my third attempt.

Back at Villa Lua, I cooked properly for the first time. Simple things. Pan con tomate with garlic rubbed across the bread until my fingers smelled of it for hours. A salad of nothing but those market tomatoes, olive oil, and salt. I ate on the terrace as the light went golden, and I understood something about why people come here. It was not the villa itself, though it was lovely. It was the slowness. The way cooking became something I wanted to do rather than something to get through.

I did venture out to eat, of course. A fish restaurant in Sant Josep where I pointed at what the neighbouring table had because my Spanish extends to "cerveza" and desperate smiling. Grilled prawns, heads on, which I ate messily and happily. But I kept returning to that kitchen, to experiments with sobrasada and honey on toast, to failed attempts at alioli that separated into oily sadness, to finally getting it right on my fifth go and feeling genuinely triumphant.

The local supermarket in Sant Josep became familiar territory. I learned which queue moved fastest, which cashier tolerated my pointing, that the chorizo near the back was better than the fancy packaged stuff. I bought squid one morning, determined to cook it properly, and produced something so rubbery I could have used it as a stress ball. I laughed at myself, alone in that beautiful kitchen, and ordered pizza that night without shame.

By my final day, I had a routine. Market in the morning if it was on, otherwise the supermarket. Coffee on the terrace while deciding what to attempt. A long lunch, properly prepared, eaten slowly. I made a paella on my last evening, not entirely authentic but honest, with rabbit from the butcher and beans from a tin because I am only human. It was decent. I was decent at it. The lizard returned, possibly the same one, and this time he stayed for crumbs.

I left Villa Lua with olive oil stains on my holiday clothes, a new respect for simple ingredients, and the certain knowledge that my kitchen at home would feel smaller and dimmer for having known this one.