I have never been so pleased to see a compost bin in all my life. There we were, my partner and I, crawling up what felt like the steepest driveway in the Austrian Alps, our hire car making noises I am fairly certain cars should not make, when I realised with a sinking feeling that I had left the key safe code on the kitchen table back in Sheffield. Three hours of driving from Salzburg, a questionable service station schnitzel still sitting heavy, and I had managed to forget the one piece of information actually required to enter our holiday home.

My partner, who had been admirably calm about my navigation skills leading us through what I can only describe as a farmer's private courtyard, was less calm about this development. There was some creative language. A cow looked at us with what I can only call judgement.

Mercifully, the owners had left a spare key arrangement with a neighbour, a lovely woman called Hilda who spoke approximately four words of English and clearly found the whole spectacle deeply amusing. She led us up to the chalet, gesturing at the view with the pride of someone showing off a minor royal residence. And to be fair, the view deserved it. Rolling green mountains, pine trees everywhere, that particular Styrian light that makes everything look slightly unreal. I stood there with my ridiculous wheelie case, still sweating from the driveway drama, and felt something in my shoulders actually drop.

The chalet itself was exactly the sort of place that makes you want to do absolutely nothing. Wooden beams, a proper stove, furniture that looked like it had been chosen by someone who understood that holidays are for horizontal living. I made straight for the garden, which sloped gently away from the house and was basically a masterclass in doing very little. A couple of weathered chairs, a small table perfect for balancing a book and a coffee, and enough privacy that you could genuinely forget other humans existed.

I did not forget. I actively chose to ignore them.

The first morning, I woke to actual birdsong rather than the usual bin lorries, made coffee in a kitchen that smelled faintly of woodsmoke, and took it outside in my socks. The grass was slightly damp. I did not care. I sat in one of those chairs for approximately three hours, reading a novel I had been carrying around since March, occasionally looking up at the mountains as if checking they were still there. They always were. Reassuringly indifferent to my presence.

My partner pottered about, investigating the local walking paths and returning with reports of a bakery in Schladming that did exceptional streusel. I nodded politely and turned a page. I had found my position and I was not moving from it. The garden had become my entire world. A small lizard lived near the compost bin, I discovered. I named him Gerald. We had an understanding.

There was a moment, perhaps day three, when I considered being productive. I even walked to the edge of the garden with vague thoughts of a stroll. Then I noticed how comfortable the chair looked from that angle, and how the afternoon sun was hitting it just so, and how my book had reached a particularly gripping chapter. The stroll did not happen. I have no regrets.

I think what surprised me was how quickly the urge to do things simply evaporated. No museums, no organised activities, no checking off experiences. Just the garden, the changing light, the distant sound of cowbells, and Gerald making his occasional appearances. My partner eventually surrendered to the pace, joining me in companionable silence with their own book, occasionally passing me biscuits without comment.

By the end, I had read four books, developed an embarrassingly detailed mental map of every slightly different shade of green visible from that chair, and genuinely forgotten what day of the week it was. We left the key with Hilda, who smiled at us like she knew exactly what we had been up to. Which was, of course, absolutely nothing at all.