I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when I missed the turning for Le Thor not once, but three times. Sat nav confidently announcing "you have reached your destination" while I stared at a field of sunflowers and a very unimpressed-looking goat. The goat, I decided, had seen this before.

The drive down from Avignon had been straightforward enough, all sweeping roads and that particular quality of Provencal light that makes everything look slightly staged, as if France is showing off just for you. I'd been congratulating myself on my excellent navigation skills, which made the final fumble all the more humbling. Round and round the outskirts I went, past the same boulangerie, the same chap watering his tomatoes, until I finally spotted the discreet lane between two plane trees and the stone walls of the old mas.

The property revealed itself slowly, which I now think is the only proper way. A gravel crunch under the wheels, then that particular hush of a walled garden in late afternoon. The house sat low and honey-coloured, shutters faded to that perfect blue-grey that no paint manufacturer has ever quite replicated. I later learned this came from decades of mistral and Mediterranean sun rather than any deliberate aesthetic choice.

My luggage and I had a small disagreement on the threshold. One wheel caught on the uneven stone, and I performed what I can only describe as an unplanned curtsey to a potted lavender bush. The bush was unmoved, literally and figuratively. I was still recovering when Madame from next door appeared with a bowl of cherries and no apparent surprise at my gracelessness. She spoke rapid Provencal that I caught perhaps every fourth word of, but the cherries needed no translation. They were warm from the sun, slightly split, absolutely perfect.

The interior smelled of stone and old wood and something faintly herby that I couldn't identify. Rosemary, perhaps, or the ghost of past ratatouilles. I dumped my case and did what any sensible person does in a strange house: opened every door and drawer with the entitled curiosity of a paying guest. The kitchen had terracotta tiles worn concave in spots, a proper fireplace with a crooked crane, and a view through a small window to a fig tree heavy with fruit. I ate three figs standing there, sticky-fingered and already possessive.

That evening I walked without purpose, which is not like me. Usually I am a planner, a list-maker, a person who researches dinner options extensively. But something about the village's particular layout, or perhaps my earlier disorientation, had shaken my usual efficiency. I turned down a passage between houses that I thought would lead to the main road and found instead a tiny square with a single bench, a fountain with a mossy cherub, and an old man playing petanque alone against a wall. He nodded. I nodded back. We did not speak. It was one of the most satisfying conversations I've had.

The mishap of arrival, I realised, had been a necessary unravelling. Getting properly lost in Le Thor wasn't a failure of navigation but a kind of permission I hadn't known I needed. The goat, I suspect, understood this all along.