I have to confess, I had never heard of Bertogne until about three months ago, when I was frantically scrolling through holiday cottages at half past eleven on a Tuesday night, convinced I deserved a break from my own kitchen and its aggressively squeaky third drawer. The place looked charming in the photos. A converted farmhouse, beams, the lot. I booked it before I could talk myself out of it.

The drive from Calais was straightforward enough until it was not. Somewhere past Namur, my sat nav developed what I can only describe as an existential crisis and started directing me down roads that grew progressively narrower, until I found myself crawling behind a tractor whose driver appeared to be having a full phone conversation without holding the wheel. I waved apologetically at him when I finally overtook; he simply raised his eyebrows and carried on talking. I liked him immediately.

Then came the mishap. I had stopped for petrol just outside Bastogne and, in my wisdom, decided to grab a sandwich. The petrol station had a small bakery counter, and I pointed at what I thought was a simple ham and cheese. The woman behind the counter asked me something in rapid French. I panicked, said "oui" several times more than necessary, and ended up with a baguette containing about half a kilo of raw minced beef, a raw egg yolk sitting on top like a terrible sun, and some capers. Steak tartare, apparently. I ate it in the car park with a plastic fork, too embarrassed to return it, telling myself it was an authentic cultural experience while quietly praying I would not become a local news story about British tourists and food poisoning.

Bertogne itself appeared suddenly, a cluster of stone houses in rolling countryside that looked almost aggressively picturesque, as if it were trying to prove something. I found the farmhouse easily enough, down a lane bordered by hedgerows that scratched the hire car in what I chose to believe was a welcoming gesture.

The key was where the owner, Philippe, had said it would be: under a terracotta pot shaped like a hedgehog. I let myself in and stood in the kitchen, surrounded by exposed beams and a fireplace you could practically stand up in, feeling that peculiar mixture of elation and mild panic that comes from realising you are entirely alone in a foreign country with a raw beef sandwich still repeating on you.

I had not been there ten minutes when there was a knock at the door. It was Madame Dufour from the neighbouring cottage, eighty if she was a day, wearing a floral apron and carrying a jar of something yellow. She thrust it at me without introduction. "Mirabelle," she said, as if this explained everything. It was jam, I later worked out, though she watched me so intently as I tasted it that I felt like a contestant on one of those television programmes where they guess obscure foodstuffs. I made appreciative noises. She nodded, satisfied, and proceeded to tell me, in a mixture of French and what I eventually recognised as thick Walloon, about every person who had stayed in this farmhouse since 1987. I understood perhaps one word in five, but her gestures were magnificently clear. The couple in 2003 had been "tres gentil" but terrible at recycling. The German family in 2015 had argued constantly. She mimed this with surprising vigour. I promised, through pointing and smiling, that I would separate my plastics.

Philippe appeared the next morning, ostensibly to check the boiler but really, I suspected, to assess whether I was the sort of guest who would ruin his mother's furniture. He was sixtyish, with the weathered look of a man who had spent decades explaining heating systems to foreigners. The boiler was in a cupboard under the stairs, and he talked me through its quirks with the patience of someone who had performed this ritual hundreds of times. It only worked, he explained, if you turned the dial to six, waited precisely forty seconds, then whispered encouraging words. I am fairly certain he was joking about the whispering, but I did it anyway, and the thing roared to life, and Philippe looked at me with something approaching respect.

"La premiere fois," he said, that anyone had followed instructions exactly. We celebrated with coffee from a pot he produced from his van, which he drank black and I drank with three sugars, trying not to wince at its strength. He told me about Bertogne, how the population had shrunk, how his children had moved to Brussels, how he kept the holiday lets going because he liked the company, the brief connections. I found myself telling him about my squeaky kitchen drawer, which seemed to amuse him greatly. He promised to find me some WD-40 before I left, though I suspect he has promised this to many guests and the WD-40 does not actually exist.

That evening, I took my steak tartare trauma to the only restaurant open in the village, a small place called Chez Francois where the menu was written on a chalkboard and the wine came in unmarked bottles. Francois himself was behind the bar, a substantial man with a moustache that deserved its own postcode. He took one look at me, said "Anglais," not unkindly, and brought me a beer without asking. I ordered the stew, pointing carefully at the board, and he nodded approvingly.

The stew arrived with bread and a seriousness of purpose I appreciated. Halfway through, a man at the next table leaned over and asked, in heavily accented English, if I knew that Bertogne was the geographical centre of Belgium. I did not know this. He was delighted to tell me, at considerable length, about the monument marking this fact, which was apparently just outside the village and which I must visit, absolutely must. His wife, who had been reading a newspaper throughout, looked up and said, in perfect English, "He tells everyone this. You are not special." He beamed at her. They had been married forty-three years, he informed me, and she had never once visited the monument.

I finished my stew, promised them both I would see the centre of Belgium, and walked back to the farmhouse in darkness so complete I used my phone torch and still nearly walked into a hedge. Madame Dufour's light was on; I saw her silhouette at the window, probably checking I had separated my plastics. I waved. She did not wave back, but the light stayed on, and somehow that felt like enough.

I have been here three days now. The boiler and I have reached an understanding. Philippe brought me not WD-40 but a small tin of something he called "better," which I suspect is just older WD-40. The tartare incident has become, in my mind, a badge of honour. Tomorrow I will visit the centre of Belgium, and I will think of that couple, and I will probably tell someone about it, whether they ask or not. That seems to be the way here. You arrive, you mishandle a sandwich order, you let people tell you things, and somehow you belong, briefly, completely, in a village you had never heard of, in a country you thought you knew.