I have never been so grateful for air conditioning in my entire life. We arrived in Koroni in late July after a drive from Kalamata Airport that felt like someone had opened the door of a particularly enthusiastic oven. My partner had insisted on hiring a car with a sunroof, which seemed terribly romantic in grey British drizzle back in March but was, I can now confirm, absolutely useless against thirty-five degrees of pure Peloponnesian sunshine.

The mishap came at the first petrol station. I hopped out feeling rather continental, managed to locate the fuel cap release on our hire car after an embarrassing amount of fumbling, then confidently grabbed the diesel nozzle. My partner's face at the window suggested I had perhaps made an error. Turns out I had. The attendant, a splendidly moustached chap who had clearly seen this before, gently redirected me to the unleaded pump with the patient air of a man who has rescued many a flustered Brit from themselves. I tipped him far too much and spent the remaining twenty minutes of the journey in mortified silence, watching olive groves blur past.

The villa sat on a hillside just above Koroni itself, and stepping out of that car was like walking into a wall of scented heat. The garden was alive with cicadas, that endless electric buzz that becomes the soundtrack of every Greek summer afternoon. Our host had left the shutters closed and the air conditioning running, and the contrast between that blasting coolness and the shimmering world outside made the whole place feel like a secret refuge. I stood in the kitchen with a glass of tap water - surprisingly cold, wonderfully drinkable - and felt something in my shoulders actually unclench for the first time in months.

Late July in the Peloponnese is not subtle. The light is fierce and golden from early morning until it finally softens around eight in the evening. We learned quickly that the terrace, with its lovely views down toward the Messenian Gulf, was essentially uninhabitable between eleven and five unless you fancied yourself as some kind of human crisp. The pool, though. The pool was everything. That first afternoon we simply floated, watching dragonflies skim the surface and feeling the water warm around us like a bath. I had brought three novels and ambitious plans for day trips to nearby beaches. I read perhaps six pages of the first book in ten days.

The seasonal rhythm dictated everything. Mornings were for the bakery run, shuffling down to Koroni's harbour in flip-flops while the town still breathed easily, before the heat built its afternoon fortress. We would return with spinach pies still warm from the oven, cherries that tasted of actual sunlight, and bread that made our usual supermarket loaf seem like a sad dietary supplement. By midday the world contracted to the villa's cool interior, to siesta and card games and that particular drowsiness that comes from too much heat and perhaps one glass of retsina too many at lunch.

Evenings expanded again. The sun dropped behind the hills around half eight, and suddenly the terrace became the best seat in the house. We ate grilled sardines from the harbour, tomatoes that needed nothing but salt, cheese that squeaked against our teeth. The heat of the day seemed to rise from the stones around us, a stored warmth that lingered well past midnight. I remember sitting out there on our third night, watching moths orbit the terrace light and listening to distant music from some village celebration, and thinking that perhaps I had been doing summers wrong my entire life. The British version, with its hopeful barbecues and inevitable rain, its frantic cramming of activity into uncertain hours of warmth, seemed suddenly like a rather anxious way to live.

There was something almost meditative about surrendering to the season. The heat enforced a slower pace whether you liked it or not. Plans became suggestions. Ambitions shrank to the manageable and immediate. I stopped checking weather apps because every day promised the same glorious, brutal, beautiful sameness. Even the occasional afternoon thunderstorm, when it came, felt theatrical rather than inconvenient - the sky darkening dramatically, rain hammering the pool for twenty minutes, then passing on like a moody guest who had simply needed to make their presence known.

I think of that holiday now, as I sit here in properly British drizzle, and what stays with me is not any particular sight or meal but the feeling of being shaped by a season so completely. The heat was not merely a backdrop but the main character, directing our movements, determining our moods, demanding respect and offering something precious in return. I went to Greece expecting history and beaches and excellent olives. I found something quieter and perhaps more valuable: the strange permission to do less, to move slower, to let the world dictate the pace for once rather than the other way around.

I still wince slightly at the petrol station memory, mind you. Some lessons travel with you, regardless of season.