I have never been so relieved to see a petrol station in my life. Three hours out of Athens, convinced I was taking the scenic route to Nafpaktos, I realised my phone had been directing me to a completely different Skaloma somewhere near Corinth. The detour cost me an hour, a small fortune in motorway tolls, and whatever dignity I had left when I finally pulled into the right village and had to ask a lovely old chap on a moped if this was indeed "the Skaloma with the holiday lets." He laughed for a good thirty seconds before nodding.

The Skaloma Nafpaktos itself sits up a winding lane just back from the Gulf of Corinth, and my first thought upon arrival was that I had accidentally booked myself into someone's very handsome olive farm. Terracotta pots everywhere, a veranda that catches the evening light like it's being paid for it, and that particular silence broken only by cicadas and the occasional distant goat. I stood there with my suitcase, still slightly sweaty from the driving debacle, and felt that lovely shift when a holiday actually begins.

The kitchen, I discovered immediately, was going to be the heart of this trip. Not because I am any great cook - quite the opposite - but because the Skaloma is surrounded by food in a way that makes self-catering feel less like a chore and more like a treasure hunt. That first evening, I drove the ten minutes into Nafpaktos town and found myself at a little taverna near the harbour, the sort with plastic chairs and handwritten menus. I ordered grilled sardines because they were what the table next to me were having, and they arrived simply, beautifully, with nothing more than lemon and olive oil. The oil, I learned later, likely came from groves I could see from my veranda.

The next morning I attempted my first market expedition. Nafpaktos has a proper weekly market, and I use "proper" advisedly because I was wholly unprepared for the volume of shouting, the aggressive generosity of samples, and my own complete inability to estimate quantities. I came away with enough tomatoes to feed a small army, a hunk of feta the size of my fist, olives that the vendor literally scooped from a barrel with his bare hands, and some local honey that I have since put on everything. The tomatoes, incidentally, were the best I have ever eaten. Sweet, dense, slightly warm from the sun. I ate three standing at the kitchen counter in my pants, which felt appropriately Mediterranean.

Cooking at the Skaloma became my daily comedy routine. The kitchen is perfectly equipped - better than my flat in Manchester, frankly - but my ambitions consistently outpaced my abilities. I attempted a fisherman's stew on my third night, having watched someone do something similar at a harbourside restaurant. The result was edible, technically, though I used far too much ouzo and the whole flat smelled of aniseed for days. A neighbour, I suspect, mentioned this to the owner, because a bottle of local wine appeared on my doorstep with a note suggesting I might "enjoy it with dinner, rather than in it."

The local eating rhythm took me a few days to adjust to. Everything happens later, which suits me, though my first attempt at a "quick lunch" at half past two found me starving and facing closed kitchen doors. I learned. I adapted. I began eating breakfast at ten, lunch at three, dinner at nine, and feeling rather sophisticated about the whole arrangement. There is a bakery in Nafpaktos old town that does these cheese pies - tyropitas - warm from the oven in the early morning, and I became embarrassingly regular there. The woman behind the counter started selecting my pie before I reached the front of the queue, which I chose to interpret as affection rather than pity.

One evening I struck up conversation with a couple at a nearby table in a taverna, and they directed me to a tiny place up in the hills behind the village, perhaps twenty minutes' drive. No sign, just tables under a vine trellis and a man grilling meat over charcoal. I had lamb chops that were simply seasoned, simply cooked, and simply extraordinary. The potatoes came from the garden behind us. The wine was rough and local and perfect. I drove back slightly too fast, slightly too full, singing badly to myself.

My final cooking attempt was a mezze spread for my last evening, everything purchased from the market that morning. Dolmades from a stall run by a woman who made them while you watched. Tzatziki I actually managed not to ruin. Those tomatoes, finally finished. I sat on the veranda as the light went, eating slowly, drinking wine, listening to the cicadas start up again. The driving mishap, the ouzo stew, the cheese pie dependency - it all felt exactly right. Some holidays you remember for monuments or beaches. I will remember this one for tomatoes and my own persistent, joyful incompetence in the kitchen.