I'd been banging on about this trip to Istria for months, so naturally the universe decided to humble me the moment we crossed into Croatia. There we were, winding through the olive groves somewhere past the Slovenian border, windows down, feeling terribly continental, when I realised with a stomach-dropping certainty that I'd left our booking confirmation on the kitchen table in Bristol. Not on my phone. Not in my email. On actual paper, pinned beneath a magnet shaped like a sheep, twelve hundred miles away.

My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The "I love you but honestly" look that married people perfect over time.

We found the turn for Savudrija eventually, after I'd made him stop three times so I could rummage through the glovebox like a frantic squirrel. The road narrowed to something that felt more like a generous footpath, flanked by stone walls and the occasional vineyard. Every bump made me wince. I'd packed for a fortnight as if we were emigrating permanently, and our poor Fiat was riding suspiciously low.

The property appeared suddenly, tucked among pines with that particular Mediterranean stillness that makes British people immediately lower their voices. Terracotta roof, cream walls, a terrace that practically begged for an Aperol spritz. It was undeniably lovely. I was undeniably sweating.

The key safe was where the pre-arrival email had promised, though of course I couldn't verify this without said email. I operated purely on memory and desperate optimism, which are not, I've discovered, reliable travel companions. The code worked on the third attempt. Small mercies.

Inside, the place smelled of pine and recent cleaning, that particular holiday-let freshness that always makes me slightly guilty about existing in a space. The kitchen was compact but properly equipped, not one of those decorative arrangements where the knives couldn't cut butter. French doors opened onto that terrace I'd spotted, and beyond it, glimpses of blue that might have been sea or might have been my dehydrated imagination.

I immediately attempted to operate the coffee machine without reading instructions, because I am a forty-two-year-old man and apparently incapable of learning. This produced a noise like a dying seal and absolutely no coffee. My partner, who had been quietly exploring the bedrooms, returned to find me apologising to an appliance.

"There's a booklet," she said, holding it up.

"I don't need a booklet."

"You absolutely need a booklet."

She was, as usual, correct. The coffee emerged eventually, rich and dark and properly European. We took our cups to the terrace, and I finally allowed myself to look properly at where we'd landed. The garden sloped gently down, citrus trees in terracotta pots, a barbecue that looked like it had seen some properly committed grilling. Somewhere nearby, a neighbour was playing music faintly, something with an accordion. It should have been annoying. It wasn't.

I thought about the confirmation letter on my kitchen table. About my stubbornness with the coffee machine. About how I'd spent the entire journey gripping the door handle on roads that weren't even particularly challenging. There's something about arriving somewhere new that strips you back to your most ridiculous self, all your coping mechanisms left behind at the last service station.

My partner touched my arm. "Stop thinking," she said.

Below us, the sea glittered properly now, no longer a trick of the light. A fishing boat moved slowly across the horizon. Somewhere in Umag's old town, which we'd explore properly tomorrow, church bells began their evening song.

I exhaled. The coffee was excellent. The mishaps, already, were becoming funny rather than stressful. That's the thing about first impressions, isn't it? They're messy and human and slightly absurd, and then you sit with them long enough and they settle into something like contentment.

Tomorrow we'd find the local market, buy fish still smelling of the sea, attempt conversations in my atrocious phrasebook Croatian. Tonight, we simply sat with our cups and watched the light change over the water, two tired people in a borrowed paradise, one of whom had finally stopped apologising to kitchen appliances.