Good evening, Greece!

TV presenter Lorraine Kelly, loves the freedom and privacy of villa holidays. Add the beaches, coves and green hills of tranquil north Corfu, she says, and you’ve got the perfect break...

I'm a huge fan of villa holidays, especially since my daughter Rosie was born twelve years ago. I love the freedom of having my own home-from-home — a place where I can come and go as I please, have breakfast when I like, have a barbecue in my own backyard and, if I'm a bit peckish, get up in the middle of the night and have something to eat. And it's so much easier to keep children happy in a villa, especially if it has its own pool and plenty of room for them to play.

Our first villa holiday was in Puerto Pollensa in Mallorca, a beautiful part of the island. Rosie was still a baby and it was much less stressful than being in a hotel. She loved splashing in the pool, and the air conditioning meant she had a refreshing afternoon nap from which she'd wake happy and gurgling and ready for us to take her out.

Since then, we've enjoyed villas in Portugal, Menorca, Lefkas in Greece and in Marbella. We've also stayed in some beautiful houses in Kissimmee, Florida. Although there's just the three of us, we usually go for a two- or three-bedroom villa so we have plenty of room to spread out, especially if we are going away for longer than a week.

Our villa in Menorca was a gorgeous converted farmhouse and we loved it, but there was no air-con: almost every night we woke up hot and sweaty. Luckily, the villa had its own pool, so we had a lot of 3am dips to cool us down.

This year — for a week at the end of July — we stayed at the Villa Anastasia, a two-bedroom house on a hill overlooking the beautiful village of Kalami and its bay on Corfu's north coast. It's a 45-minute drive from the airport, and the further north we drove the quieter and more beautiful the island became.

I always find it a bit worrying when I open the front door and get my first look at my new temporary home, but I was impressed with the accommodation at the Villa Anastasia. Both bedrooms had bathrooms with showers. The kitchen was small but it had an enormous fridge- freezer and dishwasher. There was a welcome pack of tea, coffee, bread, cheese, milk, fruit and even a couple of bottles of beer and a bottle of local wine.

The little sitting room had a big satellite television set, but even though I'm a TV junkie, I didn't switch it on once. I suppose it would have come in handy if the weather hadn't been so gloriously sunny all the time.

I'm one of those holidaymakers who have to unpack right away. While I got everything sorted, Rosie and my husband Steve played in the private pool, which had the most stunning views of Kalami, and the hills of Albania in the distance.