I will never forget the moment I realised I'd packed twelve teabags, three novels, and absolutely no trousers for my week at Buenavista in Tenerife. There I stood at Manchester Airport, rummaging through my case like a woman possessed, while my other half muttered something about "typical" and steered me toward the overpriced emergency shorts shop. Forty quid later, I had two pairs of linen trousers that would spend the entire holiday smelling faintly of airport panic.

The flight passed in a blur of budget snacks and anticipation. By the time we collected our hire car and wound up through Tenerife's volcanic landscapes, my stomach had moved past hungry and into what I can only describe as a state of advanced negotiation. We stopped at a petrol station near Los Cristianos where I ate a sandwich that tasted of cardboard and regret, which only sharpened my determination to eat properly once we arrived.

Buenavista itself perched on the hillside like a promise. The villa had that whitewashed, terracotta-roofed charm that makes you immediately want to open wine and forget your troubles. But I had priorities. The kitchen, I discovered with relief, was actually decent. Proper hob, decent oven, enough pots and pans to attempt something ambitious. I stood there planning elaborate meals while my other half unloaded cases and quietly reminded me about the trouser incident.

That first evening we walked to a local restaurant barely ten minutes away, somewhere in the winding streets near the coast. I ordered grilled octopus because I was determined to be the sort of person who orders grilled octopus, then spent twenty minutes chewing with the concentration of someone defusing a bomb. The papas arrugadas with mojo sauce, though, were an absolute revelation. Those wrinkly little potatoes, salty from the sea, drenched in green coriander mojo that made my eyes water pleasantly. I ate them with my fingers like a proper tourist, mopping up every last drop.

The next morning I attacked the local mercado with the enthusiasm of someone who had watched far too many cooking programmes. Fresh goat's cheese, tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, bananas from plantations I could practically see from the villa terrace. I bought bread still warm from the oven, olive oil in a bottle with no label, and some local white wine that the stallholder described with a gesture I chose to interpret as "excellent." Back at Buenavista, I attempted a Spanish tortilla for lunch.

Reader, it was a disaster.

I have never seen eggs behave with such active rebellion. The middle remained suspiciously liquid while the edges achieved the texture of rubber flooring. We ate it anyway, sitting on the terrace with that questionable white wine, laughing at my culinary hubris while lizards darted across the warm stones. There is something humbling about failing at something so simple, surrounded by such beauty. I found myself reflecting, perhaps aided by the wine, on how much of my life I spend rushing toward competence when sometimes incompetence with good company is infinitely preferable.

The following days brought gradual improvement. I mastered the tortilla on my third attempt, though I use "mastered" generously. We discovered a fishmonger in a nearby town who sold freshly caught cherne, and I learned to cook it simply with garlic and lemon, letting the ingredient speak for itself. Breakfasts became leisurely affairs of local honey on crusty bread, fresh orange juice, coffee made in a battered stovetop pot I found in the villa cupboard.

One evening we attempted to recreate that restaurant mojo sauce. Seven chillies, three guesses at the spices, and a blender incident I would prefer not to discuss. The resulting concoction could have stripped paint. We ordered takeaway pizza and ate it on the terrace, watching the sun drop behind La Gomera, and I felt genuinely content in my failures.

By the week's end, my linen trousers smelled of olive oil and success. We had eaten our way through markets and kitchen experiments, through restaurant discoveries and honest mistakes. I left Buenavista with a slightly expanded waistline, a recipe for mojo that I am still too frightened to attempt at home, and the certain knowledge that next time I will check my case more thoroughly, though probably I will not.