I have to be honest with you, I had never heard of Orihuela Costa before my mate Dave suggested it. "It's near Valencia," he said, waving his hand vaguely. "Sun, sea, cheap beer. What more do you want?" What I wanted, apparently, was to not spend forty minutes driving round a roundabout in Alicante because I had confused "Orihuela" with "Orihuela Costa" on the sat nav. They are not the same place. Not even close. By the time I worked this out, I had seen the same petrol station four times and developed what I can only describe as a personal relationship with a local lorry driver who kept pulling up alongside me with a look of profound concern.

The villa itself, when I finally found it, was one of those crisp white numbers with a pool that looks inviting until you remember you have to maintain it. I had barely turned off the engine when a head popped over the wall. This was Miguel, the neighbour, who introduced himself by asking if I knew anything about pumps. I do not know anything about pumps. Miguel sighed with the weariness of a man who has met many Englishmen who do not know anything about pumps. "Is okay," he said. "I teach you." He did not teach me. He fixed it himself while I stood there holding a spanner and feeling like a child who has been allowed to watch the grown-ups work.

The woman who managed the property, Pilar, arrived the next morning with keys I did not need and stories I absolutely did. She was seventy if she was a day, dressed head to toe in leopard print, and spoke English with the confidence of someone who had learned it entirely from American crime dramas. "You need anything, you call me," she said, tapping her phone. "I am retired police. Very connected." I have no idea if this was true. I did not ask. There was something about Pilar that made you want to believe everything she said, or at least pretend to.

The local shop was run by a brothers, Juan and older Juan, which was not confusing at all until you realised they both answered to it. Older Juan had a moustache that deserved its own postcode. Younger Juan did not, but was trying. They sold everything from fresh bread to inflatable flamingos, and they operated on a system of credit that seemed based entirely on whether they liked your face. I must have an acceptable face, because after three days I was walking out with chorizo and not entirely sure when I had paid for it. "Next time," Younger Juan would say, which I suspect is how they have stayed in business since 1987.

By the pool one afternoon I met Brenda and Terry from Wolverhampton, who had been coming to the same complex for eleven years. They knew Miguel's entire family tree. They knew which day the bread van came. They knew, and this is critical, that you should never ask Pilar about her second husband. "We don't talk about Carlos," Brenda whispered, though we were alone and Carlos was presumably somewhere in Spain, living his life. Terry just nodded and topped up his sangria. Some knowledge, it seemed, was earned through years of gentle, persistent presence.

I left after a week with a functioning pool pump, a slight sunburn, and a bag of oranges from Miguel's tree that I smuggled through customs with the guilt of a man who has definitely done something wrong but is not sure what. The sat nav got me back to the airport first time. I almost missed the petrol station.