The sat nav had been insisting we were three minutes from our Fazana cottage for the best part of twenty minutes when I finally accepted that Istrian country lanes do not recognise the concept of a through road. My partner, ever the optimist, suggested we ask directions from a chap pruning olive trees. I, ever the stubborn mule, declared we were "basically there" and promptly reversed into a drainage ditch.

There is something uniquely humbling about standing in a foreign country, ankle-deep in muddy water, while a man with pruning shears tries not to laugh. He did direct us though, bless him, waving us down a track that looked barely wide enough for a determined goat. Ten minutes later, we crawled past a stone wall draped in bougainvillea and found ourselves at the iron gates of our holiday home.

I had booked this place in a frenzy of January optimism, seduced by photographs of a rustic stone cottage with a garden that seemed to promise nothing more strenuous than the occasional blink. The reality, I am relieved to report, exceeded even my laziest expectations. We dumped our bags in the hallway and made straight for the covered terrace, where a wooden table sat beneath a pergola thick with grapevines. I counted seventeen different shades of green before I gave up and simply exhaled.

The garden became our universe for the week. Mornings began with coffee on that terrace, watching geckos dart across the warm stone walls. The previous owner had planted fig trees and lavender with what I can only describe as strategic brilliance; every corner offered some new pocket of shade or scent. I developed an embarrassingly possessive attachment to a particular wooden lounger positioned between two pines, where dappled sunlight fell in patterns perfect for napping. My partner claimed the hammock. We communicated across this five-metre divide primarily through meaningful grunts and the occasional request for more watermelon.

I had packed three novels with the vague intention of "getting through them." I managed half of one, and this felt like a tremendous achievement. There is a peculiar liberation in realising that your most pressing concern is whether to move your chair three inches left to avoid the midday sun. I spent one entire afternoon watching a tortoise navigate the herb garden. I named him Branko. We did not become close.

The cottage itself encouraged this splendid inertia. Thick stone walls kept the interior deliciously cool, and the kitchen opened directly onto the terrace so that cooking never felt like an interruption to outdoor living. We made simple meals: local cheese, tomatoes that actually tasted of something, bread from the bakery in Fazana village proper. The village itself remained a pleasant ten-minute stroll away, close enough for provisions but far enough that no errand felt casual enough to attempt more than once daily.

By day four, I had stopped checking my watch entirely. This was not some mindful revelation; I had simply forgotten where I had put it. The discovery prompted not panic but a profound shrug. What did I need to know the time for? The sun would inform me when lunch was appropriate. My stomach would handle the rest.

Our final evening, we sat on that terrace until the mosquitoes finally drove us indoors. The garden had grown familiar in a way that felt earned rather than merely observed. I thought about Branko, presumably still on his herb garden expedition. I thought about the sat nav, still wrong about everything. Mostly I thought about how rarely I allow myself to be this unproductive, this gloriously idle, and how much I had needed it without knowing. We would return to schedules and notifications soon enough. For now, the fig tree dropped a ripe fruit onto the table with a soft thud, and neither of us moved to pick it up.