The satnav had been promising we'd arrive in twenty minutes for the best part of an hour, which should have been my first clue that our holiday was off to a characteristically chaotic start. We'd flown into Naples, picked up a hire car that smelled faintly of wet dog and optimism, and set off for Rutino in the Cilento hills with the sort of confidence that only comes from having watched one YouTube video about Italian driving. The mishap, when it came, was gloriously stupid. I pulled over to photograph a particularly handsome goat, managed to lock the keys in the boot, and spent forty minutes attempting to communicate this through a fence to a bemused farmer whose only English appeared to be "Manchester United." He eventually produced a wire coat hanger with the casual expertise of a man who'd clearly done this before, possibly for other hapless Brits.

By the time we wound our way up to the property, the afternoon light had turned that particular honeyed gold that makes everything look like a film set. The house sat among olive trees with the comfortable, settled look of somewhere that had no intention of impressing anyone, which of course made it instantly impressive. A low stone wall, terracotta pots with geraniums that had clearly been winning some local beauty contest for years, and a garden that rolled down the hillside in a series of lazy terraces. I stood there with my ridiculous suitcase and felt something in my shoulders drop about three inches.

The first morning, I woke to nothing more demanding than birdsong and the distant clank of someone else's breakfast preparations. This became the pattern. Coffee on the terrace, watching the mist lift off the valley while pretending I had profound thoughts about it. A wander down to the bottom of the garden where a hammock waited with the patience of an old friend. I had brought four books and finished three, which tells you everything about my ambitions. The fourth remains guiltily unread, a hostage to future visits.

There is a particular pleasure to doing very little in a place that expects nothing of you. No sights to tick off, no restaurants requiring reservations made weeks ahead. The nearest village, equally called Rutino, supplied bread and cheese and a man who sold tomatoes from his garage with the solemnity of a cathedral vendor. I walked there once, slowly, and felt rather heroic about it. The return journey, slightly uphill, required a sit-down among the olive trees and a lengthy conversation with a lizard.

The garden became my universe. I learned which corner caught the afternoon sun, where the rosemary grew thickest, the exact spot to stand for mobile signal if absolutely necessary. It rarely was. My partner developed a minor obsession with a straggly lemon tree and took to murmuring encouragement at it. I mocked this until I found myself doing the same to a potted basil, at which point I accepted that the hills had worked their softening magic.

On our final evening, we opened wine we'd bought from a neighbour who produced it in quantities that suggested a very relaxed approach to EU regulations. We sat on those weathered terrace stones as the swallows did their evening circuits and talked, for the first time in months, without any sense of rushing towards the next thing. That is the real luxury of a place like this, I think. Not the view, though the view is generous. Not the house, though the house is honest and comfortable. The luxury is permission. Permission to be slightly useless, slightly silly, to lock your keys in a boot and need rescue by a goat farmer, to measure your days in chapters read and naps taken and nothing whatsoever achieved.

I have never been more grateful for less.