I have never been so grateful to see a Lidl in all my life. There we were, two hours after landing at Corvera Airport, beetroot-faced and bickering in a hire car that smelled strongly of pine and regret, when I realised I had left the entire folder of villa details on the kitchen table in Leeds. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The "you had one job" look, refined over fifteen years of me having precisely one job and botching it.

We found the Cartagena Miranda eventually, down a dusty track near Los Belones that Google Maps seemed to regard more as a suggestion than a fact. The villa sat there like a sun-baked secret, all white walls and terracotta tiles, with a pool glinting at us like a promise. I fumbled with the lockbox, dropped the key twice, and nearly fell into a rosemary bush. Standard arrival procedure, really.

But here is where I must be honest with you. We had not eaten since a grim airport sandwich at six that morning. My stomach was making noises that belonged in a nature documentary. The villa kitchen, when we finally staggered inside, was genuinely lovely - proper hob, decent knives, a fridge that actually worked. I opened it with theatrical hope. Empty, of course. Echoing. A single ice tray and someone's abandoned lemon.

"Right," I said, with the false confidence of a man who once watched half a Rick Stein programme. "We'll do a proper shop. Cook properly. Like locals."

The Lidl in Cartagena saved us that first evening. We bought everything. I mean everything. Chorizo, manchego, those little green olives that look like they've been through something, bread that could double as a weapon, tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes. Back at the villa, I attempted a tortilla. It stuck to the pan, fell apart, and became something I can only describe as "deconstructed Spanish egg." We ate it by the pool at half past nine, still in our travel clothes, drinking warm Estrella because the fridge had not yet forgiven us for opening it so often.

The next morning, I was up at seven from sheer hunger and jet lag confusion. The local market in Cartagena proper - Mercado de Santa Florentina - became my church. I have never seen so much fish in one place. Hake with eyes that judged me. Octopus that looked like it might still have opinions. An old woman selling peppers that smelled of proper heat, not that supermarket nonsense. I bought squid, planning some ambitious rice dish, and carried it back to the villa like a trophy.

That squid taught me humility. I cleaned it badly, cooked it worse, and we ended up getting emergency tapas at a beach bar in La Manga. Grilled sardines, simple and perfect, with alioli that made me want to weep. The barman watched me demolish three plates and said something in Spanish that might have been sympathy or might have been mockery. I did not care. I was too busy plotting my return to that market with actual knowledge, actual plans, perhaps an actual Spanish cookbook.

By day four, I had improved marginally. A proper gazpacho, chilled and sharp, which I made wearing only swimming shorts and dignity. Paella on the outdoor hob, slightly burnt on the bottom, which my partner declared "authentic socarrat" through what I suspect was kindness rather than conviction. We ate it at the long table on the terrace, watching the sun drop behind the hills, and I felt briefly like a man who had his life together.

The villa's barbecue saw heavy use. Local lamb chops from a butcher in Los Belones who communicated entirely through pointing and enthusiastic gestures. Peppers blistered until sweet. Bread rubbed with garlic and tomato in that proper Catalan way I had read about and finally attempted. I burned my fingers, obviously. I always burn my fingers. It is my signature move.

Breakfast became a ritual. Fresh orange juice from the market, bread from the panaderia in Portman, olive oil that tasted like green grass and pepper. I ate it on the terrace every morning in pants and a t-shirt, slightly sunburned, slightly hungover, completely content.

We did not eat out much. This was partly economy, partly stubbornness, partly the genuine pleasure of cooking in that kitchen with the doors flung open to the pool. But the places we did try - a tiny restaurant in Cabo de Palos for arroz caldoso, a chiringuito for fried anchovies eaten with our fingers - showed me what I was aiming for and mostly missing.

On our last evening, I attempted a proper Spanish omelette again. It worked. I mean, it actually worked. Golden, set, sliceable. I presented it with ridiculous pride, as if I had invented eggs. We ate it with market tomatoes and that good oil, drinking wine from the local cooperative that cost four euros and tasted of honest work.

I left the folder on the kitchen table again when we packed. Some things do not change. But I also left with a slightly better understanding of squid, a deep respect for Spanish tomatoes, and the certain knowledge that I am the sort of man who will burn his fingers on a barbecue until the day he dies.