I have never been so relieved to see a village sign in my life. After six hours of driving from Carcassonne airport, half of them spent on winding roads that seemed designed by someone with a grudge against straight lines, we finally spotted "Thezan des Corbieres" on a weathered stone marker. My partner Dave was triumphant. "Told you we didn't need sat nav," he announced, just as the back tyre clipped a vine post and sent a shower of gravel into someone's front garden. A shutter flicked open. An elderly woman peered out, expressionless. Dave waved cheerily. She closed the shutter. Welcome to rural France.

The mishap that defined our arrival, though, happened five minutes later. I had insisted on navigating the final stretch myself, map in hand, playing the competent traveller. Our holiday home was supposedly down a lane beside the church. I spotted what looked like a promising track, directed Dave left, and within thirty seconds we were wedged between two stone walls in what turned out to be Madame Fournier's private driveway. Not the lane. Definitely not the lane. Madame Fournier herself emerged from her house, wiping floury hands on an apron, and stood with arms folded while Dave performed a twelve-point turn that would have shamed a learner. I smiled apologetically through the window. She did not smile back. But then, as Dave finally freed the car, she called out something in rapid French that I completely failed to catch. "Pardon?" I managed. She sighed, walked over, and pointed wordlessly to the correct lane, twenty metres further on. "La," she said, firmly. Then, inexplicably, she laughed. A proper, wheezy, smoker's laugh. "Les Anglais," she muttered, shaking her head, and went back inside.

The correct lane led to our stone house, all terracotta tiles and wooden shutters, with a small pool glinting in the afternoon sun. I was still mortified. Dave, naturally, thought the whole thing hilarious. "First impression: tres bien," he announced, unpacking cases with theatrical cheerfulness.

We met our actual neighbour the following morning. Monsieur Belot, seventy-ish, permanently in blue overalls, appeared over the wall while I was attempting to operate the outdoor barbecue with the confidence of someone who had never operated an outdoor barbecue. "Ca va?" he asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question. I explained, in my halting school French, that we were fine, just fine, absolutely fine. He nodded, watched me struggle with the gas connector for a full minute, then reached over and fixed it with a single twist. "Voila," he said. Then he stayed. For an hour. He told us, in a mixture of French and surprisingly good English learned during a year working in Manchester in the 1970s, about the village, the wine, the tourists who came and went. "You," he said, pointing at me, "you have the face of someone who argues with maps." I could not dispute this. When Dave brought out beers, Monsieur Belot accepted with the gravity of a man receiving a diplomatic gift. We learned that his wife had died three years ago, that his son lived in Montpellier, that he grew tomatoes in a greenhouse behind our property and we were welcome to any that went red while we stayed. "But not the green ones," he specified. "I am not finished with the green ones."

By day three, Madame Fournier had thawed marginally. We encountered her at the village shop, a dim establishment that seemed to stock everything and nothing in particular. I was buying bread, performing my usual ritual of pointing and hoping. She was ahead of me in the queue, purchasing what appeared to be a single lemon. The shopkeeper, a younger woman with elaborate glasses, greeted us with the warmth of someone who had already heard about the driveway incident. "Les Anglais de Madame Fournier," she announced, as if this were our official title. Madame Fournier turned, examined us with theatrical disapproval, then reached into her bag and produced two tomatoes. "From my garden," she said, thrusting them at me. "Better than Belot's." She left without further comment. The shopkeeper explained, in English far better than my French, that Madame Fournier and Monsieur Belot had been conducting a friendly tomato rivalry for fifteen years. "You are now," she said, "part of something."

We spent our evenings by the pool, drinking local Corbieres wine that cost less than bottled water at home, watching the light change on the hills. Dave became obsessed with identifying birds. I became obsessed with not getting lost again. Monsieur Belot continued his visits, always unexpected, always brief, always leaving some small piece of information about the village or its inhabitants. The baker in the next village was unreliable since his divorce. The road to Durban-Corbieres had a dangerous bend that tourists regularly misjudged. The best figs grew on a tree behind the old schoolhouse, technically public property, though Madame Fournier considered them hers by ancestral right.

On our final morning, we found a paper bag on our doorstep. Inside, green tomatoes, carefully wrapped, with a note in shaky capitals: "For frying. Do not wait for red. Life is short." No signature, but the paper smelled faintly of flour and cigarette smoke.

We fried them for lunch, before the long drive back. They were sharp and delicious and nothing like the tomatoes at home. Dave said we should return next year. I said I would let him navigate. He said that was probably wise. We both knew I would ignore him, and that Madame Fournier would probably be waiting.