The sat nav had been promising us "arrival in five minutes" for the best part of half an hour by the time we finally spotted the turning for Fontvieille, and I was already in that peculiar state of holiday tension where you are desperate to be out of the car but equally terrified you have booked a complete disaster. My partner, Dave, was muttering something about "bloody French road signs" while I clutched my phone, watching the little blue dot wander aimlessly across what appeared to be a vineyard.

We found the property eventually, down a narrow lane that scraped the hire car on both sides. Dave reversed three times to let a tractor pass, each manoeuvre accompanied by increasingly creative language. I chose not to mention that perhaps we should have paid for the extra insurance. Some truths are best left unspoken on day one of a holiday.

The key was supposedly in a lockbox, which sounds simple enough in principle. In practice, I had written down the code on a scrap of paper that had somehow migrated to the bottom of my handbag, buried beneath three months of receipts, a rogue tampon, and something sticky I decided not to investigate. Dave stood watching with that particular expression of patience worn thin while I performed what felt like an archaeological dig. "It's meant to be relaxing," he said, in a tone that suggested he found the current situation anything but.

The lockbox finally opened with a satisfying clunk, and I may have done a small victory dance that Dave absolutely did not film on his phone. He definitely did. I have since seen the video. My dignity remains somewhere on that doorstep.

Stepping inside was like walking into a different world from the dusty chaos of our arrival. The house had that wonderful stillness of somewhere properly old, with thick stone walls that immediately swallowed the afternoon heat. A faint smell of lavender drifted from somewhere, perhaps dried bunches in a cupboard or just the general essence of Provence seeping through the windows. I stood in the hallway, handbag still clutched to my chest like a life preserver, and felt something in my shoulders actually begin to unclench.

The kitchen was reassuringly basic in that French country way, tiled floor slightly uneven, a proper wooden table that had clearly witnessed decades of meals. I ran my hand along it and encountered a small groove, probably from some long-ago bread knife, and found myself unexpectedly moved by the thought of all the ordinary mornings that had happened here. Dave had wandered off to investigate the bedrooms, and I could hear him opening shutters, letting in rectangles of golden light.

I had worried, stupidly, that renting someone's actual house rather than a purpose-built holiday let would feel intrusive, like wearing another person's clothes. Instead it felt generous, somehow, as if we had been trusted with something. The books on the shelf were real books, read and kept, not decorative spines. A child's drawing was pinned to the corkboard in the kitchen, faded now, probably years old.

Dave reappeared to announce that the bed was "actually decent" which is high praise indeed from a man who once complained about a mattress at a five-star hotel. We opened the doors to the terrace and stood there in silence, looking out at the garden with its olive trees and the distant shimmer of what I later learned was the Alpilles range. A cicada started up, then another, until the air itself seemed to vibrate with their noise.

I realised I was still holding the car keys and the sticky thing from my handbag, and laughed properly for the first time that day. The journey had been ridiculous, the arrival chaotic, and I had absolutely packed the wrong shoes. But standing there, with the heat and the light and that extraordinary sound, I felt the particular relief of knowing you have got something right without quite understanding how.