I have never been more grateful for a cup of tea than I was at half past nine on a Thursday evening, standing in a gravel driveway somewhere north of Zagreb, wondering why my partner thought downloading the property directions was "probably fine" when we'd lost signal forty minutes ago.

The journey from the airport had started well enough. We'd collected our hire car, a cheerful little Fiat that made enthusiastic beeping noises whenever I strayed slightly toward the verge, and set off into what the Sat Nav optimistically called "Continental Croatia." The landscape flattened and greened, all rolling fields and sudden patches of forest, and I felt terribly continental myself, window down, elbow out, until I realised I'd been holding the map upside down for twenty minutes and we were now definitely not on the road we wanted.

The mishap, when it came, was spectacularly undramatic. We'd finally found the turning for Ivanec Salinovec, bouncing down a narrow lane that grew increasingly agricultural, when I spotted what I was certain was our property. Stone walls, wooden beams, the lot. I wrenched the Fiat into a hasty reverse, heard an ominous crunch, and discovered I'd backed neatly into a wooden post supporting someone's grapevine. The post wobbled. The grapes, I am pleased to report, were unharmed. My dignity was not.

We were, of course, at entirely the wrong house. The actual Ivanec Salinovec was another three hundred metres down the lane, hidden behind a curve of oak trees, and by the time we found it I was ready to abandon the Fiat and simply live in it forever like a very middle-class hermit.

But then the owner appeared, a woman called Marija who took in our flustered state with the patient expression of someone who has seen many British people reverse badly into agricultural infrastructure. She led us through a wooden gate into a garden that smelled of cut grass and woodsmoke, and suddenly the whole exhausting journey compressed into something manageable.

The house itself was exactly the sort of solid, unpretentious stone building you find in this part of Croatia. Thick walls that probably remembered the Austro-Hungarian Empire, wooden shutters that actually shut, and a covered terrace where someone had left a lantern burning. Marija showed us the kitchen with its proper fireplace, the bedrooms with their heavy wooden furniture, and I found myself making that particular noise British people make when we want to express approval without actually opening ourselves emotionally: a sort of extended "lovely" that goes up at the end.

My partner, who had been suspiciously quiet since the grapevine incident, disappeared to inspect the garden and returned looking sheepish. He'd found the outdoor cooking area, the covered terrace with its long wooden table, and what he described only as "a lot of very professional-looking barbecue equipment." This from a man who once set fire to a disposable grill in a Brighton car park.

We made tea with the supplies Marija had left, standing in that warm kitchen with its slightly uneven floor, and I felt the particular tension of travel begin to drain away. Through the window, the garden was settling into darkness, and somewhere an owl started up. I thought about the grapevine, and the wrong house, and my terrible reversing, and found I couldn't quite muster proper embarrassment. The post had wobbled, but it hadn't fallen. We were here. The tea was hot. Somewhere outside, my partner was already poking at the barbecue with the expression of a man planning something ambitious and probably flammable.

Tomorrow, I decided, we would explore properly. There would be walks through the nearby forest trails, perhaps a trip to the local village shop for supplies, and definitely a moment where I checked the Fiat for grape-related damage in daylight. But for now, standing in that stone farmhouse with my tea going cold in my hands, I felt the particular pleasure of arrival after chaos. The journey had been ridiculous. The first impressions, once we finally found the place, were something rather better.

Marija had left fresh eggs in the fridge, and I could already picture the morning: waking to birdsong, making coffee on the little stove, stepping out onto that terrace to plan the day. Continental Croatia had arrived with a bump, quite literally, but I was already rather fond of it.