I have never been brilliant at reading ferry timetables, and this particular morning on the Peljesac peninsula proved it beyond doubt. There we were, my partner and I, sat in a hire car at the wrong port, watching our intended ferry chug away towards Korcula without us. The April sun was doing that thing where it looks warm but absolutely is not, and I was wearing sandals because I had optimistically packed for "spring in Dalmatia," which in my head meant Mediterranean glamour. In reality it meant goosebumps and a stubborn refusal to admit I needed socks.

The drive from Dubrovnik had already been spectacular, all winding coastal roads and sudden glimpses of the Adriatic that made me gasp embarrassingly every ten minutes. But April, as we were learning, is a transitional creature in these parts. The summer crowds have not arrived. The tourist infrastructure is still rubbing sleep from its eyes. This is precisely why we had chosen it, of course, fleeing the August prices and the packed beaches of our previous Croatian holiday. Yet standing at that deserted port, watching my carefully planned itinerary dissolve, I did wonder if we had been too clever for our own good.

We eventually found our way to Sreser, a small village on the southern side of Peljesac, by the simple method of driving until the road ran out of alternatives. The property sat among low stone walls and scrubby vegetation, the garden not yet burst into the full Mediterranean abundance I had seen in photographs. Instead there were hints of it, promises, like the almond tree dropping its last pale petals onto a terrace still too chilly for evening drinks outside. The pool, that magnificent turquoise rectangle that had sold me on the booking, wore a cover like a tucked-in blanket. "Heating available upon request," I had noted months ago, then promptly forgotten. My partner gave me a look. I gave him a look back that I hoped conveyed "adventure" rather than "I have made a terrible mistake."

The owner, a local woman named Marija, met us with a warmth that felt genuinely pleased rather than professionally performed. She explained that we were among her first guests of the season, that the restaurant two doors down had opened just last week, that the fishmonger came on Thursdays if the catch was good. This was the rhythm of early spring in Dalmatia, she implied, not the frantic turnover of July but something more tentative, more negotiated between human plans and natural uncertainty. I found myself unexpectedly moved by this, by the sense that we were not merely consumers of a holiday experience but participants in something still forming.

Inside, the house compensated for the season's reluctance. Thick stone walls held the day's gathered warmth; a wood-burning stove sat ready though probably unnecessary. The kitchen smelled of the previous evening's fire, that particular dry sweetness of olive wood. I opened the shutters to the terrace and the sea beyond, grey-green today under cloud, and felt the peculiar intimacy of off-season travel. This place was not performing for us. We were seeing it unmade, in its morning face, and there was something slightly vulnerable about that which I recognised in myself.

The mishap with the ferry, I decided, setting down my bag and accepting the inevitable need for proper shoes, was not a mistake at all but an introduction. April had introduced itself with a practical joke, and I was learning to laugh along rather than fight the season's slow unfolding.