I have never been so pleased to see a washing line in my life. Three hours into our drive from Athens, having already survived one toll booth where I confidently handed over a fifty-euro note for a three-euro charge and then spent five minutes trying to reverse out of the lane, we finally pulled up at the little stone cottage in Lygia, just outside Xylokastro. The washing line was the first thing I spotted, strung between two olive trees in the garden, and I knew immediately that this was going to be the sort of holiday where small domestic details become oddly thrilling.

The mishap, because there is always one with me, came during the final stretch of the journey. I had been so smug about downloading offline maps, so pleased with my preparation, that I failed to notice my phone had connected to the hire car's Bluetooth and was now giving directions in Greek. Not helpful Greek, either. Just a very calm, authoritative woman announcing words I could not possibly spell while I took a wrong turn down what I can only describe as a goat's personal driveway. My partner sat in silence for a full minute before asking if I intended to ask the goat for directions. I did not. We reversed, again, and eventually found the lane that led to the cottage.

The owner had left the key under a terracotta pot by the door, which felt deliciously illicit, and stepping inside for the first time was like walking into someone's grandmother's house in the best possible way. Terracotta tiles underfoot, wooden shutters that actually close properly, and that particular coolness that stone buildings keep even when the midday heat is doing its worst outside. I opened every window immediately, not for breeze exactly, but to let the place breathe after our stuffy car journey.

The garden is what sold me on this place, and the garden is what I fell for within about four minutes of arrival. Not manicured, not designed, just a proper working Greek garden with fruit trees and herbs growing in pots and that washing line I had already mentally claimed for our beach towels. A covered terrace with a wooden table and chairs sat at one end, and I knew before I had even unpacked my case that this would become my headquarters for the week. I pictured myself there with coffee, with wine, with a book I would definitely not finish.

Which brings me to the doing very little. I am terrible at it, genuinely awful. At home I am the person who loads the dishwasher during the advert breaks. But something about this cottage, this garden, this particular patch of Peloponnese, has undone me completely. The first morning I woke early, made terrible coffee with the little stovetop pot, and sat on that terrace for two hours watching a neighbour's cat make its slow patrol of the garden wall. I read perhaps six pages of my novel. I cannot tell you what happened in those six pages. I was too busy noticing how the light changed on the lemon tree.

The afternoons have settled into a rhythm so gentle it barely qualifies as rhythm. A walk down to the little pebble beach at Lygia, maybe, though more often I simply move from the terrace to a sun lounger in the garden and back again. I have read the same paragraph three times and not cared. I have napped with a paperback open on my chest and woken to find a gecko watching me from the wall with what I choose to interpret as fellow feeling.

Yesterday I spent forty-five minutes trying to identify a bird from its call. I failed. The failure felt like achievement. This is what this place has done to me.

The kitchen is basic, the shower takes a moment to find its temperature, and I have absolutely no desire to be anywhere else. We bought tomatoes and peaches from a roadside stall, bread from the bakery in Xylokastro, cheese that I cannot pronounce properly and do not need to. Most evenings we cook something simple and eat it outside as the light goes, talking about nothing much, listening to the cicadas ramp up their evening performance.

I brought running shoes. They remain in my case, and I suspect they know their fate. There is a hill behind the cottage that I have looked at thoughtfully several times and never climbed. The looking feels sufficient. The garden has become my world, bounded by the washing line and the lemon tree and the slow passage of shade across the terrace tiles. I am doing less than I have ever done on holiday, and somehow it feels like more than enough.

Tomorrow I might finish that chapter. Or I might not. The cat is due back on its wall, and I have a front row seat.