I should have known the holiday had truly begun when I managed to leave my reading glasses on the plane at Split Airport. There I was, squinting at the hire car paperwork like a confused mole, while my partner tried not to laugh too loudly. Forty minutes later, still grumbling, we wound our way through pine-scented coastal roads toward Seget Vranjica, me holding restaurant menus at arm's length and declaring everything looked deliciously blurry.

The property sat nestled above a quiet cove, and stepping through the gate felt like walking into someone else's peaceful afternoon. A stone cottage with terracotta roof tiles and shutters that had clearly seen a few summers. The garden was the immediate star: lemon trees heavy with fruit, lavender bushes humming with bees, and a terrace where a faded wooden table promised long lunches. I found my glasses case sitting smugly on the outdoor sofa where I'd apparently left them while unpacking. So they never made it to the plane at all. My partner said nothing, but her expression spoke volumes.

That first morning set the template for everything that followed. I woke to the sound of a neighbour's rooster, which I initially mistook for an alarm I hadn't set. Coffee on the terrace, watching the early boats putter across toward Trogir's old town in the distance. The sun climbing slowly over the water, turning the bay from grey to green to impossible blue. I had brought three novels and a guilty stack of magazines, and I intended to make serious inroads into all of them.

The garden became my kingdom of indolence. There was a hammock strung between two pines that swallowed whole afternoons. I would climb in with a book, read perhaps three pages, then find myself staring at the pattern of light through the needles, listening to the cicadas' relentless summer symphony. My partner took to sketching the potted geraniums. Neither of us achieved anything remotely productive. It was glorious.

We established a rhythm of magnificent laziness. Breakfast stretched until eleven, involving market tomatoes and cheese from a small shop down in Seget Donji, eaten with bread that went slightly hard in the warmth before we ever finished it. The pool, when we eventually stirred ourselves, was small enough to feel private, surrounded by bougainvillea that dropped papery flowers onto the water. I perfected the art of floating with a paperback held carefully above the surface, though I ruined one chapter of a thriller through overconfidence.

Evenings meant grilling fish on the stone barbecue, fumbling with unfamiliar charcoal and feeling disproportionately proud when it actually cooked through. We ate late, as the locals do, watching the sky turn that particular Dalmatian violet that seems to last longer than sunset has any right to. Sometimes we walked the hundred metres down to the rocky shoreline, where locals swam off concrete jetties and children chased each other through pine needles. I never swam far, preferring to paddle and observe, feeling the warm salt water on my ankles.

On our fourth day, I realised I had not checked my phone in thirty-six hours. The glasses debacle had somehow set the tone: this was not a holiday for seeing clearly, in any sense. I stopped trying to plan excursions, stopped worrying about whether we should be doing more. The cottage asked nothing of us except presence. We gave it gladly, and it returned the favour with shade and silence and the smell of herbs in hot air.

I left with half-read books, slightly sunburned shoulders, and a new appreciation for misplacing things.