I'll never forget the moment I realised our sat-nav had developed a sense of humour. There we were, winding through the hills above Kvarner Bay, my wife clutching the door handle like it was a life raft, the kids in the back asking for the fifteenth time if we were nearly there, and suddenly the voice announced we had reached our destination. The only problem? We were staring at a goat. Just one goat, looking deeply unimpressed, in what appeared to be somebody's olive grove. Turns out I'd punched in the wrong postcode back at Zagreb Airport, which is entirely on brand for me.

Another forty minutes of increasingly scenic wrong turns later, we finally spotted the actual property down in Moscenicka Draga, and I have to say, the goat had nothing on this view. The place sits on that gorgeous stretch of coast where the mountains seem to tumble straight into the Adriatic, all blue-green water and little boats bobbing about like toys. My daughter actually gasped, which is remarkable for a twelve-year-old who normally communicates exclusively through shrugs.

The villa itself had that lovely lived-in feel you want from a family holiday let, not one of those sterile show homes where you're afraid to breathe on the furniture. Within approximately four minutes of arrival, my son had managed to jam the sliding door to the terrace, my wife had discovered the washing machine and immediately started a load because apparently relaxation means laundry, and I was standing in the kitchen with a warm Croatian beer wondering where we'd put the suitcases. The chaos was immediate and somehow perfect.

I spent that first evening mostly on the terrace, grilling something that was probably meant to be fish but had become vaguely charcoal-like through my traditional British approach to barbecuing. The kids were in the pool, which they'd claimed like conquering explorers, and my wife was reading a book she'd been carrying since Heathrow. Every so often she'd look up at the bay, shake her head slightly, and go back to her page. I knew that shake. It meant she was already forgiving me for the goat.

What struck me most about those first hours was the particular rhythm of the place. Down in the village, you could hear the evening promenade starting up, that Mediterranean ritual of slow strolling and louder talking that makes absolutely no sense to British sensibilities but somehow feels exactly right. The light changes differently there too, softer somehow, hanging about the hills long after it would have packed up and gone home in the UK.

I found myself thinking, as I watched my daughter attempt to teach my son to float, that this was precisely why we did this to ourselves. The wrong turns, the jammed doors, the questionable barbecuing. Not for perfection, but for these specific moments of slightly dishevelled togetherness, somewhere that smells of pine and salt and somebody else's dinner cooking nearby.

By the time we turned in, the kids were already asleep in unfamiliar bedrooms, the washing machine had finished its second cycle because my wife cannot be stopped, and I stood on that terrace in the dark listening to the sea doing its eternal thing down below. The goat, I decided, had been a necessary detour. We were exactly where we needed to be, which is not something I can say about many of my navigational decisions.