I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I confidently loaded the Sat Nav with our St Jean de Monts postcode and promptly drove straight past the first roundabout twice. My partner gave me that look, the one that says "we've been on the road for eight hours and you're doing this now?" The kids in the back had already reached that feral stage where every snack has been eaten and every screen has died. We were a travelling circus in desperate need of a base camp.

The journey down through Pays de la Loire had been gorgeous in that slightly blurred way that long drives always are. The flat marshlands near the coast started appearing, all reeds and distant glimpses of water, and I felt that first little lift of holiday excitement. Then I missed the same roundabout again. Third time lucky, as they say, though nobody in our car was saying anything particularly lucky at that moment.

When we finally pulled up to the property, I made a complete show of reversing into the driveway and clipping the wheelie bin with a sound that still haunts me. A plastic bin, barely a scratch on the car, but my dignity took the real battering. The neighbours probably thought the British had arrived with their usual subtlety. I stepped out, stretched my legs, and tried to look like someone who definitely knew how to reverse a family estate car.

But here's the thing about that first moment when you open the door of a holiday place. All the chaos of the journey, the bin incident, the roundabout humiliation, it just stops mattering. The house had that lovely light you get near the coast, all pale floors and windows looking out towards where you know the sea is waiting. The kids bolted past me to claim bedrooms before I'd even set down the bags, which is apparently a universal law of family holidays that no amount of pre-negotiation can prevent.

I found the kitchen while my partner started the great bedding investigation that always follows arrival. The fridge hummed its welcome. I opened it, empty and expectant, and made a mental note about the morning market in the town centre. That's the simple pleasure I always forget I love until I'm there, the planning of nothing more complicated than fresh bread and whatever cheese looks interesting. No work emails, no school runs, just the slightly ridiculous challenge of feeding everyone from whatever looks good that day.

The garden needed exploring, obviously. The kids had already found the outdoor furniture and were conducting some kind of tribunal about who got which chair. I stood there with my cup of tea, made with a kettle I'd located through pure instinct, and watched the late afternoon light doing that golden thing it does in this part of France. The pine trees nearby smelled exactly like holidays are supposed to smell, and somewhere a dog barked in that relaxed, coastal way that suggests even the animals are on their break.

I thought about how we do this every year, this slightly chaotic arrival, this promise to ourselves that we'll be different this time, more organised, more graceful. We never are. The bins get clipped, the roundabouts get missed, the kids get feral. But standing there in that garden, watching my family already settling into their temporary kingdom, I realised I wouldn't actually want it any other way. The chaos is the memory, really. The smooth arrivals never stick in your mind.

That evening we walked to the nearest beach, barely ten minutes away, just to dip our toes and say we'd done it. The Atlantic was doing its dramatic thing, all rolling waves and proper sea energy, not like the tame Mediterranean stuff. The kids shrieked at the cold and ran back out immediately, which is also tradition. We got slightly lost walking back in the dusk, because apparently I don't learn, and arrived back at the house hungry and sandy and already laughing about the bin.

The first night in a strange bed always feels like camping indoors, that unfamiliar quiet and the different shadows on the ceiling. I lay there listening to the kids whispering in the next room, probably plotting tomorrow's chair tribunal, and felt that particular peace of knowing you've got days of this ahead. No plans beyond breakfast, no ambitions beyond finding that market and maybe a decent coffee.

I woke to early light and the sound of someone already rummaging for cereal. The holiday had officially begun, in all its unglamorous, slightly dishevelled glory. I wouldn't swap it for the smoothest, most Instagram-perfect arrival in the world. This was ours, bin clip and all, and the best bits were still waiting.