With my wife and our two daughters (aged 13 and 15), we had the ground floor and garden of a two-storey house in Imerolia, Corfu. The other floor was reserved for the absent owners. The long, terraced garden ended at a bright blue, wooden gate onto a deserted pebble beach about four metres wide, then the warm, blue sea. You rinsed off the salt at a beachside shower, before returning to sit in the shade. Two tortoises, Tiny and Tim, lived in the garden for the girls to track down and tempt with a variety of foods. Strawberries were popular and the juice would come out of their prehistoric noses. 

A fruit and vegetable truck pulled up on the road behind once a week. An airy, quiet taverna sat less than 100 metres along the beach, and the fishing village of Kassiopi, with its bars and restaurants, was a 15-minute walk. There was no internet and no TV. I had run the London Marathon the day before we arrived and my thighs were so stiff I had to walk backwards down the steep path from the road, but it meant I could feel relaxed about relaxing. We went back twice before the owners sold up. 

It’s still the model: basic, self-catering (luxury is for losers); warm sea on the doorstep; action within walking distance, but not too close; the whole family together. It was the sort of place you dream of retiring to, if you dream of retiring (I’m dreaming of it right now).

This Is Memorial Device, Traverse Theatre, Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, Thursday 18–Saturday 20 April; main picture: Robin Gautier.