I have never been so grateful to see a man with a moustache holding a jug of wine in my entire life.

The ferry from Preveza had been straightforward enough, but my hire car situation was less so. I had booked what I called a "compact" and what the rental company clearly called "a joke." By the time I wound my way up to Lazarata on Lefkada, my knees were somewhere near my ears and my suitcase had slid off the back seat three times. Then I missed the turning. Twice. The third time I stopped to ask directions from an old chap sitting outside a kafenio, and he just pointed upward and said, "Higher. Your house is higher." Helpful, in a cryptic sort of way.

The villa itself, when I finally found it, was perched like a stubborn goat on the hillside. Whitewashed walls, terracotta roof, that classic Ionian look. I was fumbling with the key box, dropping the code sheet, generally making a spectacle of myself, when a voice came from the neighbouring terrace. "You are English, yes? You look English. The struggle with the box, very English." This was Dimitris, seventy if he was a day, wearing a vest that had seen better decades and smoking something that smelled suspiciously hand-rolled. He introduced himself as "the welcome committee, unofficial, unpaid, overqualified." Within five minutes he had produced that jug of wine, explained that his wife had left him for a man in Nidri who sold boat tours ("she likes the water, what can you do"), and informed me that the key box was actually jammed and I'd need the spare from under the fake rock.

The fake rock, naturally, was not fake enough. It was the most obviously fake rock in the history of landscape design, painted grey, sitting among actual grey rocks like a bad actor in a good play. Dimitris found this hilarious. "My cousin made this. He is artist. Not good artist, but artist."

By now a woman had appeared from the villa on the other side, drawn by Dimitris's booming commentary on my incompetence. This was Maria, originally from Athens, retired here "to be quiet" which she said with the exhausted tone of someone who had not experienced quiet in years thanks to Dimitris. She was carrying a plate of something wrapped in filo pastry and insisted I take three. "He will talk until midnight. You need food for strength." She was not wrong. Dimitris had opinions on everything: the best beach (Agios Nikitas, "but too many Germans now"), the worst taverna in the village (he named it, then admitted he ate there weekly), and why British people always burn the first day ("you think you are Mediterranean. You are not Mediterranean").

I got the tour of my villa eventually, mostly from Maria, who kept shushing Dimitris. The pool was smaller than the photos suggested, which Maria acknowledged with a shrug. "Greek pool. For cooling, not for swimming. You want swimming, go to the sea. The sea is God's pool." Dimitris countered that the sea was full of fish that "look at you judgmentally," which Maria ignored.

That first evening I sat on my terrace with Dimitris's wine, which was rough and excellent, and listened to them bicker across the gap between their properties. Maria shouting that he was smoking too close to her herbs. Dimitris shouting back that her herbs were "criminal overgrowth" anyway. Somewhere a goat made a noise of general disapproval.

I thought about how I had planned this trip as an escape, some solitary recharge among beautiful scenery. Instead I had acquired two argumentative guardians within an hour of arrival. It was not what I expected. I found I did not mind at all.

The sun went down over the mountains and Dimitris called across, "Tomorrow I show you the good bakery. The one with the granddaughter who speaks English. Not pretty English, but English." Maria threw something at him, probably a herb.

I raised my glass to no one in particular and drank to unexpected company.