I have never been so grateful to see a stone wall in my entire life. After six hours of driving from Naples airport, my partner and I finally spotted the wooden gate of Laureana Cilento, our cottage for the week, tucked into the hills above the Cilento coast. I was halfway out of the car before it had stopped moving, desperate for a wee and a cup of tea, not necessarily in that order. What I had not anticipated was the rental car's handbrake having other plans. The vehicle rolled backwards three feet and wedged itself neatly against a lemon tree. My partner's face was a picture. The lemons, mercifully, survived. I did not live it down for the rest of the evening.

The owners, a lovely local couple whose English was roughly equal to my disastrous Italian, appeared from the main house with a bowl of just-picked figs and what I can only describe as the patience of saints. They helped us extract the car, showed us to our cottage, and pretended not to notice my burning cheeks. The cottage itself was simple and spotless, with terracotta floors that stayed cool underfoot and wooden shutters that smelled of beeswax and decades of summer holidays. I dumped my bags on the bed, opened every window, and finally let out a breath I felt like I had been holding since Gatwick.

The garden was where I wanted to be. Not the beach, not the picturesque villages, not even the promise of proper mozzarella di bufala from the farm shop ten minutes down the lane. Just the garden. It was not manicured or fussy. Olive trees scattered shade across patches of dry grass, a hammock sagged invitingly between two stone pines, and a small terrace with a wobbly metal table looked out over a valley that rolled down towards the sea like a rumpled green tablecloth. Someone had left a half-finished game of cards on the table, which made me oddly emotional. I wanted to be the sort of person who played cards slowly in the afternoon without checking my phone.

That first morning, I woke with no alarm and no plan. This was revolutionary. At home I am the queen of lists and packed schedules, the sort of person who colour-codes her calendar and feels guilty watching television before eight in the evening. Here, the only commitment was deciding whether to make coffee before or after locating my book. I chose after, which felt practically decadent. I spent two hours in the hammock with a novel I had been meaning to finish since March. A lizard kept me company on the wall, darting about with far more purpose than I had.

Lunch was bread, tomatoes, and cheese from the village shop, eaten at that wobbly table with my feet up on a spare chair. The afternoon heat settled heavily, and the garden fell into a doze. Even the insects seemed to slow down. I joined them, drifting in and out of sleep on a sun lounger with a straw hat over my face. My partner read beside me, occasionally reading aloud some fact about Roman ruins that I pretended to absorb before dozing off again.

By late afternoon the light shifted to something golden and forgiving. I made another pot of coffee, stronger than necessary, and wandered barefoot through the olive trees. The soil was dry and warm between my toes. I picked a few sprigs of wild oregano that grew stubbornly from a crack in the terrace wall, more for the smell than any culinary purpose. Dinner would be simple pasta later, nothing ambitious. The fridge contained leftovers and good intentions.

As the sun dropped behind the hills, painting everything rose and amber, I realised I had not checked my email once. I had not planned an excursion or researched restaurants or felt that nagging pressure to make the most of every moment. The most productive thing I had done all day was successfully relocate from hammock to sun lounger and back again. It was glorious. The lemon tree, I noted, was still standing. So was I, barely, in the most wonderful way.