I have never been so relieved to see a tumble dryer in my entire life.

The journey to Castilenti had been going so well. We flew into Pescara, picked up the hire car, even managed a confident bit of motorway Italian at the toll booth. Then, somewhere between the A14 and the winding roads of Abruzzo, I committed the classic British holiday blunder. I opened my rucksack to grab a jumper and discovered my entire bottle of suncream had exploded over everything. Every shirt. Every pair of trousers. My one decent book. I sat there in the passenger seat, holding a dripping copy of "The Leopard" and wondering if this was some kind of cosmic punishment for packing optimistically for Mediterranean weather in April.

The road climbed higher, the villages grew smaller, and eventually we found ourselves in Castilenti itself. A handful of houses clinging to a hill, the sort of place where an old bloke on a scooter gives you a look that says "you're not from round here" even though he's never met you. Our cottage sat at the edge, down a track that made the hire car's suspension whimper. Stone walls, terracotta roof, a garden that had clearly been loved by someone with more patience than me.

I will be honest. My first act upon arrival was not to admire the view or unpack thoughtfully. It was to stuff every sticky, suncream-soaked item into the washing machine and pray. The cottage had a tumble dryer. I nearly wept.

By the time I'd rescued my wardrobe, the afternoon had softened into that particular Abruzzo golden hour where the light seems to come from everywhere at once. I made a cup of tea using the sort of electric kettle that takes seven minutes and found a deckchair in the garden. The garden, I should say, was magnificent in an unshowy way. Olive trees, a few fruit trees I couldn't identify, herbs growing in pots that looked like they'd been there since the seventies. A low stone wall marked the boundary, and beyond it the hills rolled away in shades of green and brown that no photograph ever quite captures.

I had brought three books. This was deliberate overpacking for a week where I planned to do almost nothing. The exploded "Leopard" went into a sort of book hospital on the windowsill. I started something lighter instead, something that required no mental effort whatsoever. Within twenty pages I was asleep.

That first evening set the pattern. Mornings were for very slow breakfasts on the terrace, watching whatever birds could be bothered to visit the garden. The cottage had a small kitchen that smelled faintly of rosemary, and I became embarrassingly invested in perfecting my scrambled eggs with local pecorino. Afternoons drifted by in the deckchair, reading, dozing, occasionally making a cup of tea and forgetting to drink it. I took one walk to the village, bought some bread and cheese from a shop where the woman seemed pleasantly surprised I attempted Italian, and immediately retreated to my garden sanctuary.

There is something deeply unfashionable about admitting you spent a holiday mostly sitting down. We are supposed to hike, explore, discover hidden gems, post photographs of ourselves looking windswept on mountain peaks. I did none of these things. On day three I moved my deckchair six feet to follow the shade and considered it a productive morning.

The garden changed throughout the day. Morning light caught the olive leaves from one angle, afternoon from another. Insects buzzed about their business with admirable focus. I watched a lizard on the wall for what felt like an hour, though I may have dozed in the middle. Time became elastic, stretching and contracting according to nothing more demanding than hunger or the need to turn a page.

My partner, more energetically inclined, did occasionally suggest outings. We compromised by walking to the edge of the garden and looking at the view, then agreeing it was excellent and returning to our respective books. Once we drove to a nearby village for lunch, which was lovely, but we both admitted afterwards that we had spent the whole meal looking forward to getting back to our terrace.

By the end of the week I had finished two books, failed to finish several cups of tea, and developed an intimate understanding of every creak in my particular deckchair. The exploded suncream incident, which had seemed catastrophic on arrival, became a funny story rather than a disaster. My clothes survived. My copy of "The Leopard" remains slightly crispy to this day, a souvenir of my own incompetence.

We left Castilenti on a morning when mist hung in the valley below, the village barely visible, our cottage garden already warm in the early sun. I felt no urge to have done more, seen more, been more active. The great revelation of the week was that doing very little, in the right place, is itself a kind of accomplishment. The garden had taught me that much, simply by being there, growing slowly, asking nothing of me but my presence.

I have already checked the cottage's availability for next year. I intend to bring suncream in a more robust container, and perhaps a fourth book, just in case.