I have never been so relieved to see a goat as I was when we finally found our Capdrot gite in Aquitaine. Three hours of driving from Bergerac airport, two wrong turns, one argument about whether I had actually packed the satnav, and there I was, standing in a lay-by, weeing in a bush like a proper British tourist, when this mangy goat wandered over and gave me a look of such profound judgement that I nearly apologised to it. Turns out the goat belonged to the farm next door. Our farm, effectively, for the next fortnight.

The gite itself was one of those sturdy stone buildings that looks like it has survived revolutions and several particularly aggressive wine harvests. My partner, Dave, immediately declared it "proper rustic" which is Dave-speak for "the oven looks older than my nan." The key was under a flowerpot, obviously, and the first thing I did upon entry was trip over a step I swear was not there thirty seconds prior. I caught myself on a kitchen counter that would become very familiar indeed.

Because here is the thing about staying in a Capdrot gite. You do not come to Aquitaine to eat out every night. You come to cook, to fail at cooking, to recover with cheese, and occasionally to stumble down to the village for emergency bread and a glass of something local. The kitchen was vast and slightly intimidating, with a range cooker that had clearly been designed by someone who hated the concept of temperature control. I decided immediately that I would master it. Dave decided immediately that he would master the local pub.

The pub, if you can call it that, was a ten-minute walk through lanes that smelled of warm grass and cow manure. Le Cafe de la Place in Capdrot village proper. Not a gastropub, not an attempt at anything trendy. Just a bar with a zinc counter, a few tables, and a chap called Bernard who seemed to have been born behind it. Dave ordered two beers in his best French, which is essentially GCSE French shouted slowly. Bernard understood none of it but produced the beers anyway, along with a plate of saucisson that we had not asked for and could not stop eating. We went back the next evening, and the evening after. By day four, Bernard was pouring Dave's beer before he reached the counter. I found this slightly galling given my own project.

My project was the Wednesday market in Villereal, which our gite information folder described as "not to be missed" in the manner of all gite information folders, which lie about most things but occasionally tell the truth. This was truth. I woke at seven, left Dave snoring, and drove twenty minutes through countryside that looked like every French film I had ever pretended to understand. The market was already busy, stalls of tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, duck confit by the jar, cheeses with names I could not pronounce and textures that ranged from sensible to frankly obscene.

I bought too much, obviously. A whole chicken, some duck fat, those tomatoes, a cheese that the woman warned me was "fort" in a tone suggesting I might not be ready for it. I was not ready for it. Back at the gite, I attempted a cassoulet-adjacent situation using the range cooker, which responded to my instructions with the enthusiasm of a teenager asked to tidy their room. Three hours later, Dave returned from the pub slightly merry and declared my creation "interesting," which is worse than "bad." We ate Bernard's saucisson for supper instead, and I reflected that perhaps mastery takes longer than a week.

By the second week, I had adjusted. The market became routine. I learned which stall had the best bread, which vendor would let me taste before buying, and that the "fort" cheese was actually magnificent if you approached it with sufficient humility and a large glass of red. The range cooker and I reached an understanding based largely on guesswork and a wooden spoon I used to prop the oven door slightly ajar. I produced a roast chicken with those tomatoes that made Dave actually put down his phone while eating. Small victories.

We still went to Bernard's most evenings. Not because my cooking failed, but because a gite holiday needs its rituals. The walk through the lanes, the zinc counter, the beer that tasted of somewhere specific. I would bring cheese from the market, Bernard would slice more saucisson, and we would sit there feeling terribly local and slightly fraudulent, which is perhaps the perfect holiday feeling.

On our final morning, I attempted one last market trip but found myself instead at the farm next door, buying eggs from the woman who owned the judgemental goat. She did not mention the bush incident, though her smile suggested she knew. The eggs were extraordinary, orange-yolked and rich, and I fried them in duck fat on the range cooker while Dave packed, and Bernard's pub sat waiting for the evening, and Aquitaine carried on around us as it had for centuries, indifferent to our small dramas of navigation and cooking and belonging temporarily to somewhere beautiful.

I have never been so relieved to see a goat, and I have never eaten so well in my life.