I have never been brilliant with directions, so it will surprise absolutely no one that I managed to get lost roughly three minutes after leaving Split Airport. The hire car satnav had a meltdown somewhere near Omis, and I found myself down a single-track road flanked by olive groves, waving apologetically at a man on a scooter who looked deeply unimpressed. Forty minutes of scenic detouring later, I finally rolled into Makarska with the sort of relief you normally reserve for finding a toilet after a long motorway journey.

The villa sat tucked up in the hillside above the town, and my first attempt at parking involved reversing into a flower bed. The owner, a cheerful chap called Davor, appeared from nowhere and assured me this happened at least twice a week. I decided to take this as comfort rather than concern.

Stepping through the front door, the first thing that hit me was the smell. Not the chemical pine of an airport hotel, but something warmer - lavender from the garden, probably, mixed with that particular dry heat that stone houses seem to hold onto. I dumped my bag in the hallway and walked straight through to the terrace, which turned out to be the best decision I made all fortnight.

The garden was ridiculous. Not ridiculous in a manicured, Chelsea Flower Show sense, but in that gloriously unkempt Mediterranean way where everything seems to be either fruiting, flowering, or plotting to take over entirely. A lemon tree sagged with fruit near the barbecue. Bougainvillea had gone absolutely feral up one wall. I later discovered that the hammock, strung between two pines at the far end, would become my headquarters for the duration.

I had brought four books with me, an act of wild optimism that actually paid off for once. The first afternoon, I did nothing but move between the hammock and a sun lounger by the pool, occasionally dipping in when the heat became properly serious. Davor had left a bottle of local wine in the fridge, and I made serious inroads into it while watching the light change over the Biokovo mountains. Somewhere around sunset, it occurred to me that I could not actually remember the last time I had done so little on purpose.

The villa itself encouraged this sloth. The kitchen opened onto the terrace, so even making coffee felt like an outdoor activity. I took to brewing a pot first thing and drinking it on the steps in my pyjamas, watching the neighbourhood cats conduct their morning patrols. There was a small supermarket ten minutes down the hill where I bought bread, cheese, and tomatoes that actually tasted of something, then retreated back to my green enclosure to do absolutely nothing productive with them.

One afternoon I attempted a walk into Makarska proper, got as far as the harbour, felt overwhelmed by the presence of other humans, and scurried back to my hammock like a startled tortoise. This became a pattern. The world beyond the garden gate could wait. I had shade, I had a stack of novels, I had a pool that demanded no conversation, and I had discovered that doing very little is, in fact, a skill worth cultivating.

By the end of the first week, I had stopped checking my phone entirely. The books got read. The wine got drunk. Somewhere in that hammock, between chapters and naps, I remembered how to be still without feeling guilty about it.