We had been on the road from Pula airport for all of twelve minutes when I realised I had left my phone in the hire car boot. Not in my pocket, not on the passenger seat, but wedged behind the spare tyre next to a half-eaten packet of wine gums. My wife gave me that look. You know the one. The look that says "I married this man" and "the children are watching" all at once. The kids, naturally, thought it was the funniest thing they had seen since I tripped over a sun lounger in Torquay.

The villa in Valtura sits down a dusty track that Google Maps treats with deep suspicion. We crawled past olive groves and the occasional stone ruin, the kind that makes you wonder if someone once lived there or if it has simply been waiting for a property programme to rescue it. Then the gates swung open and there it was: a proper Istrian stone house with a pool that caught the afternoon light like someone had planned it that way.

First impressions? The smell of lavender hit before anything else. Someone, at some point, had planted it everywhere. The kids bolted for the pool before I had even found the key safe. My wife stood very still on the terrace, doing that thing where she decides whether to be annoyed about the phone or to let it go. She let it go. The view helped. Rolling hills, red-tiled roofs in the distance, and a silence broken only by cicadas and my youngest asking if there was Wi-Fi.

The interior was exactly what you want from a Croatian stone house. Exposed beams that look original until you notice the hidden spotlights. A kitchen with enough pots to pretend you will cook properly, which you will not. We found a welcome bottle of local Malvazija in the fridge, slightly warm but entirely welcome. I poured two glasses while my wife investigated the bedrooms. She reported back that the master had a balcony "for morning coffee" and that I would be the one fetching it.

That first evening, we did what every family does in a holiday let. We opened every cupboard, discovered the previous guests had left behind a jar of something unidentifiable, and argued about which bedroom the children should have. The pool became the centre of gravity. I watched my daughter teach herself to dive, or attempt to, while my son perfected the art of doing absolutely nothing on a lilo. The water was that perfect temperature where you can stay in for an hour without turning blue.

Dinner was simple. Local prsut from a shop in Valtura village, cheese, bread that required serious jaw work, and tomatoes that actually tasted of something. We ate outside until the mosquitoes arrived, which in Istria is roughly the moment you think "this is paradise." I was dispatched to find citronella candles in a cupboard that smelled of swimming costumes and regret.

By ten o'clock, the children were asleep in unfamiliar beds and my wife and I sat by the pool with that second bottle. The stars were doing their thing, properly visible in a way they never are at home. I thought about my phone, still in the boot, and decided it could wait until morning. Some things, I told myself, are better left behind. Though I did need it for the photos, and the maps, and the ability to prove to my mother that we had arrived safely.

The mishap with the phone became the holiday's running joke. Every time we went anywhere, someone would ask if I had checked the boot. I laughed every time. Mostly. But sitting there that first night, with the pool lights doing their soft blue glow and the distant sound of someone else's barbecue, I felt the particular relief of a holiday that has started properly. The chaos of arrival, the small failures, the lavender smell and the warm wine. This was exactly where we needed to be.