I should have known the holiday proper had begun when I left my rucksack on the train at Graz and had to sprint back down the platform like a madman, flailing at the conductor. My partner just stood there, slowly shaking her head, already accepting that this was how our week in Styria would unfold. We retrieved it, naturally, but my dignity remained somewhere around platform three.

The drive south to Eibiswald wound through valleys so green they looked almost aggressive about it. Every hillside seemed to compete for your attention, rolling and tumbling over itself like puppies. We missed our turning twice, which I blamed on the satnav and my partner blamed on me, which felt fair enough.

We found the house tucked up a lane just outside the village, a proper wooden place with a balcony that sagged slightly in a welcoming sort of way. Before I could even knock, the door swung open and there stood Hilda, who I later learned had been watching for our car since half past two despite our agreeing on four o'clock. She was seventyish, built like a fire hydrant, and immediately seized my hand in both of hers.

"You are the English! You missed the road by the yellow house, I saw it from my kitchen," she announced, not as accusation but as cheerful reportage. Her husband Walter appeared behind her, shorter by a head, wearing a cap that advertised a tractor parts company and a cardigan with actual leather patches. He said nothing, merely nodded gravely as if confirming our identities against some mental checklist.

Hilda insisted on the full tour immediately, before luggage, before loo, before anything. Walter trailed behind, occasionally pointing at things with his walking stick and making small satisfied noises. The house was spotless and smelled of beeswax and something faintly medicinal that Hilda later admitted was her homemade schnapps, "for cleaning only, officially."

"Officially," Walter repeated, with what I can only describe as theatrical skepticism.

The mishap with my rucksack came up, because I am an idiot who volunteers information. Hilda clapped her hands together in genuine delight.

"Walter once drove to Slovenia with the neighbour's cat in the boot! Three hours! The cat was fine, Walter was not!" She wheezed with laughter. Walter, to his credit, merely adjusted his cap and said, "It was my sister's cat. The neighbour's cat would have been better company."

They left us eventually, Hilda pressing apples into our hands from a bowl by the door, Walter pausing on the path to demonstrate the proper angle for viewing the sunset from the balcony. "Not straight. Always a little to the left. You'll see."

We did see. That evening, exhausted and slightly drunk on Hilda's "cleaning" schnapps, we sat slightly to the left and watched the valley turn gold and then purple and then something indescribable. My partner observed that I had not lost anything since the train. I pointed out that the day was young.

The next morning, Walter appeared without announcement at nine precisely, carrying a paper bag of still-warm bread rolls and a jar of honey from his own hives. He explained nothing, simply placed them on the table, nodded at the view, and departed. I ran after him to thank him properly, and he turned with something almost like surprise.

"It is normal," he said. Then, after a moment's consideration: "Hilda would send me back if I forgot." He walked away whistling, tunelessly but with evident satisfaction.

By day three, Hilda had established herself as our unofficial social secretary. She appeared each morning with intelligence: the baker's wife had a new grandson, the walking path past the old mill was muddy after rain, someone named Franz had excellent eggs but unreliable hours. We never met Franz, but I feel I know him intimately. Hilda's descriptions were novelistic in their specificity. "Franz has a moustache like a disappointed brush. His eggs, though! You forgive the moustache."

We did find Franz eventually, or rather his unmanned honesty box at his gate, which Hilda found unspeakably amusing. "He trusts too much! Last week, someone took eggs and left buttons! Buttons!" She wheezed again, wiping her eyes.

Walter's contributions remained more cryptic. He would appear silently, deliver something useful or edible, offer a single observation, and vanish. "The river is high today. Not dangerous. Just talkative." He once spent ten minutes demonstrating how to operate the outdoor grill without setting fire to the wooden fence, a tutorial that implied both historical knowledge and personal scar tissue.

My favourite encounter came on our fifth evening. We had attempted a walk to a local swimming spot Hilda recommended, got comprehensively lost among meadows that all looked identical, and emerged two hours later onto a road we did not recognise. Walter drove past in an ancient green van, stopped with theatrical slowness, and wound down his window.

"You are not where you think," he observed.

"We're not where we think either," I admitted.

He drove us back in silence except for occasional chuckles that seemed directed at some private amusement. Hilda was waiting on our balcony when we arrived, having somehow been alerted to our predicament. She had prepared lemonade and a detailed lecture on local footpath numbering that she had apparently been saving for exactly this situation.

"You must learn," she said, with the patient exasperation of a born teacher. "Or you will meet Walter again. He does not mind, but his van is old and smells of fish."

"It smells of fish because of the fish," Walter said, as if this explained everything.

On our final morning, they both appeared together, formally, like a delegation. Hilda brought a jar of her damson jam. Walter produced a hand-drawn map of local walks with corrections in three colours. They stood side by side on the path as we loaded the car, and I realised suddenly how much I would miss this rhythm, these intrusions, this gentle surveillance.

"We come in summer to the English guests," Hilda said. "It is our tradition now."

"You are not the worst," Walter added, which from him constituted a standing ovation.

We missed our turning twice on the way back to Graz, naturally, and I did leave my sunglasses at a service station, but somehow it felt fitting. Some patterns you simply accept. The valley rolled away behind us, aggressively green to the last, and I found myself already slightly to the left, watching the sunset in my mind, waiting for whatever came next.