I should have known the holiday was going to be characterful when my sat-nav tried to send me up what I can only describe as a goat's idea of a shortcut. There I was, halfway up a track in Continental Croatia, wondering if my hire car's suspension would ever forgive me, when an elderly chap appeared from a hedge like a particularly weather-beaten garden gnome. He spoke no English, I spoke no Croatian beyond "hvala" and "pivo," and yet through a magnificent performance of pointing, eyebrow-waggling, and what I think was an impression of a car falling off a cliff, he directed me back to actual tarmac. I never got his name. I like to think he still appears to lost tourists, a spirit of the Zagorje hills.

The property in Gornja Stubica itself was everything the photos promised and nothing like them at all, which is the eternal mystery of holiday lettings. The owner, Mirjana, met me with keys and a level of maternal concern that suggested she'd already heard about my navigational adventures. Within four minutes she had established my marital status, my mother's health, and whether I understood how to operate a wood-burning stove. I do not, as it happens, and she knew it before I did. "You English," she said, not unkindly, pressing an extra blanket into my arms. "Always cold, always surprised."

That first evening I walked to the nearest konoba, partly for dinner and partly because Mirjana had mentioned it seven times and I feared supernatural retribution if I didn't. The place was run by a man called Davor who had the build of a retired shot-putter and the gentle demeanour of someone reading poetry to a nervous kitten. He spoke English with an accent I can only describe as "Yorkshire by way of Yugoslavia," picked up during years working in Leeds. We discussed football, which I know nothing about, and he patiently explained the entire Croatian league system while I nodded and ate the best cevapcici of my life. When I admitted my ignorance, he laughed so hard he had to lean on the bar. "You come tomorrow," he said. "I teach you proper."

I did come tomorrow. This is how holidays work: you make one decision to be polite, and suddenly you're a regular. Davor's wife, Jasna, appeared on my second visit with a jar of something pickled and the air of someone conducting an inspection. She looked at me, looked at Davor, looked at my empty plate, and communicated an entire marital conversation without speaking. He brought me a complimentary rakija. It tasted like being forgiven by a fire.

The third character of my stay was technically a dog, but dogs have personalities and this one, attached to the neighbouring farm, had opinions. He would appear at the property's gate each morning with the punctuality of a commuter, stare at me through the bars with the disappointed expression of a middle-manager, and wait to be acknowledged. I named him Supervisor. We never touched; it wasn't that kind of relationship. But his silent judgment became part of my routine, and I found myself explaining my daily plans to him as I left. He never approved, but he never stopped showing up, which I choose to take as encouragement.

By my fourth day, Mirjana had started bringing me vegetables from her garden "because you look like you eat from packets." Davor had introduced me to two other regulars, brothers in their seventies who argued about Tito with the fondness most people reserve for discussing unreliable family members. I understood perhaps thirty percent of these conversations, but the percentage felt like progress. Somewhere in the middle of a discussion about mushroom foraging, I realised I was no longer a tourist performing interest; I was actually interested. The brothers noticed too, I think, because one of them pressed a paper bag of dried mushrooms into my hand as I left, with the gravity of passing down an heirloom.

The mishap with the sat-nav feels like weeks ago now, though it was only days. I keep thinking about that man in the hedge, how he didn't need language to be kind, how he probably tells that story to his own friends with gestures I wouldn't understand. That's the thing about places like Gornja Stubica: you arrive thinking you'll see the countryside, maybe visit a castle, tick the boxes. Instead you find yourself adopted by strangers who have no reason to bother with you, who bother anyway, who teach you that being slightly lost is sometimes exactly where you need to be. I never did learn to work that stove properly. Mirjana knew I wouldn't. She left me an electric heater on my last morning, no words spoken, just that same look of amused resignation. I'll be back, I think, if only to see if Supervisor ever decides to forgive me completely.