I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got the ferry times wrong by a full twelve hours. There I was, sat in the car at Roscoff at six in the morning, clutching a lukewarm coffee from a vending machine, wondering why the terminal doors were locked and the car park was suspiciously empty. Turns out our sailing was not, in fact, at dawn. It was at six in the evening. My partner gave me that particular look, the one that says "I love you but I am going to bring this up for approximately the next decade."

We killed the day wandering around Roscoff, which is actually rather lovely when you are forced to explore it unexpectedly. Found a decent creperie, ate far too many galettes, and eventually boarded the correct ferry with my tail between my legs. By the time we drove down through Finistere and into the Cotes-d'Armor, I was absolutely gagging for the gite in Plouezec that had looked so peaceful in the photos.

The approach did not disappoint. Narrow lanes, high hedgerows, the occasional startled rabbit. Proper Brittany countryside. We found the turning, bumped down a track, and there it was. Stone walls, blue shutters, a little garden that looked like someone actually cared about it. I practically fell out of the car with relief.

Then came the second mishap. The key safe code, which I had written on my phone, which I had then dropped in a puddle at the ferry terminal. My phone worked, technically, but the screen had developed an artistic smudge precisely over the final two digits. I stood there in the drizzle, trying combinations like I was cracking a safe in a heist film, while my partner unloaded the boot with increasingly theatrical sighs. The neighbours' cat watched from a wall with what I can only describe as professional disdain.

We got in eventually. The third attempt, if you must know. I may have done a small victory dance in the gravel that I absolutely do not regret.

Stepping inside, the chaos of the journey fell away immediately. Beamed ceilings, a proper fireplace, that particular smell of old stone and wood polish that you only get in French country houses. The kitchen was one of those gloriously practical affairs with a big table in the middle, the sort of room that makes you want to buy local cheese and pretend you are much more rural than you actually are. I opened the back door and there was the garden, slightly overgrown in that deliberate French way, with a terrace that caught the last of the afternoon sun.

I will be honest with you. Standing there with my still-damp shoes and my dignity in tatters, I felt something shift. The ferry confusion, the key safe palaver, the general incompetence of my own navigation, it all suddenly seemed rather funny. Not the sort of funny that makes for a good story immediately, but the sort that settles in after a glass of wine and a deep breath.

We walked down to the village as the light faded. Plouezec is not exactly a metropolis, which suited us perfectly. A boulangerie, a bar-tabac, the sea visible in glimpses between the houses. We bought a baguette that was still warm, some butter, nothing else. That first evening we ate bread and cheese at the kitchen table with the windows open, listening to something that might have been an owl or might have been a very confused seagull, and I thought, yes, this will do nicely.

The mishaps had got us here, in their own ridiculous way. I would not recommend my method, exactly. But I would recommend the arriving, the fumbling, the eventual getting of the key and the opening of the door and the standing still for a moment to realise that you have, against all reasonable odds, made it to exactly where you wanted to be.