I have never been so relieved to see a washing machine in my life, and that includes the time my toddler decorated our sofa with strawberry yoghurt. The journey to our Trogir Sevid villa had been one of those classic family holidays beginnings that you laugh about later, ideally much later, over a large glass of something cold.

We flew into Split, which was straightforward enough, then collected our hire car. I had insisted on a sat nav rather than relying on my phone, smugly predicting patchy signal. What I had not predicted was my husband's unshakeable confidence in a shortcut he spotted on a paper map. Yes, a paper map. He found it in the glovebox, probably left by a holidaymaker from 1987, and decided it looked "more authentic." Forty minutes later we were on a road that grew progressively narrower until we were essentially driving through someone's olive grove, exchanging awkward waves with a bemused old chap tending his trees. The children thought this was tremendous. I was calculating whether we could sleep in the car.

The sat nav, sulking in the cupholder, finally regained signal and directed us back to civilisation. We arrived at the Sevid property as the afternoon light was turning golden, which was fortunate because it made everything look rather magical and distracted me from the fact that we had no clean clothes. The mishap, you see, had occurred at a service station near Primosten. My youngest, excited about a juice box, had executed what I can only describe as a tactical squeeze. The resulting explosion covered her, the car seat, and my rucksack containing all our swimming things. My husband, still riding high on his cartographic triumph, had laughed. I had not.

But standing there on the terrace, looking out at the Adriatic glittering beyond the pines, something in my shoulders unclenched. The villa was exactly the sort of unpretentious, comfortable place a family needs. Terracotta tiles, whitewashed walls, that particular Mediterranean smell of warm stone and dried herbs. The children immediately vanished to investigate the pool, leaving a trail of sticky footprints. I did not care. There was a covered terrace with a proper outdoor dining table, a barbecue in the corner looking slightly apologetic about its rust spots, and loungers positioned for maximum afternoon laziness.

I must confess to a moment of gentle self-reflection as I unpacked our damp and juice-stained belongings. There I was, fretting about laundry and whether I had packed enough suncream, while outside lay the sort of view people paint watercolours of. My mother always said I could worry for England, and she was not wrong. I was doing it again, letting a minor catastrophe colonise my entire mood. The juice box was not a portent. It was just juice.

The children reappeared, demanding to know when we could swim, when we could eat, whether there were lizards. There were always lizards. I sent them to change, discovered the washing machine, and felt something approaching genuine joy. It is the small mercenaries of holiday life, I find, the functional dishwasher and the decent shower and the machine that removes evidence of juice crimes.

That evening we walked the few minutes down to the local Konoba, the sort of family-run place where the owner seems faintly surprised you have found them and rewards you with enormous portions of grilled fish and potatoes roasted in olive oil. The children fell asleep at the table. We carried them back, slightly drunk on local wine and the particular contentment of having nowhere else to be.

The holiday had begun, sticky and ridiculous and entirely ours.