I have never been so pleased to see a washing machine in my life. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The journey to Aglientu started with the sort of optimism that only a pre-holiday glass of airport wine can provide. We flew into Olbia, picked up a hire car that smelled faintly of pine air freshener and regret, and set off north with two children, four suitcases, and a sat nav that seemed personally offended by Sardinia's road network. Somewhere between Tempio Pausania and the turnoff for our property, my youngest announced she felt sick. I handed her a carrier bag with the confidence of a parent who has done this before. She missed. Entirely. The bag remained pristine; her t-shirt did not.

We arrived at the property with me cradling a vomit-soaked child like a particularly pungent rugby ball, my wife attempting to find the key safe using a torch app that kept turning off, and our eldest asking whether Sardinia had McDonald's. The answer, incidentally, is complicated.

The property itself sits on a gentle slope looking out towards the coast, surrounded by the low scrub and granite outcrops that make this corner of Sardinia feel properly wild rather than polished for tourists. I had worried it might feel isolated, but as I stood there in the dark with a sobbing child and a growing awareness that I had packed every non-essential item except spare clothes, I found the silence almost aggressively peaceful. No traffic. No neighbours peering over fences. Just the distant sound of something that might have been a dog or might have been a very confident sheep.

The owner had left the lights on, which felt like the warmest possible welcome given our state. We tumbled through the door and I performed the parental triage that follows any journey with children: locate toilet, locate food, locate somewhere to wash the sick out of everything we own. The washing machine, tucked into a utility corner, became my immediate best friend. I have never loaded a machine with such devotional fervour.

Morning revealed what darkness had hidden. The house opens onto a covered terrace where you could easily lose several hours to very little at all. We ate breakfast there, picking at the pecorino and pane carasau we had grabbed from a supermarket in Olbia, watching the light change over the maquis. The children, restored by sleep and the magical resilience of the young, were already plotting expeditions to the rocky coves that lie scattered along this coastline like secret pockets.

I found myself doing that thing I always promise not to do on holiday: planning. Should we drive to Rena Majore today? Or tackle the walk down to one of the smaller beaches? My wife caught me at it, mid-spreadsheet in my head, and gave me the look. The one that says, we have a week, the sun is out, and your daughter is currently attempting to befriend a lizard. Perhaps just exist for a moment.

She was right, obviously. There is a particular pleasure to this kind of holiday that has nothing to do with ticking off sights. The house is simple, unpretentious, the sort of place where sandy feet are expected and the outdoor shower becomes the main bathroom because it simply feels better. We cooked most evenings, grilling fish from the morning market in Santa Teresa Gallura, eating late as the light finally faded and the temperature dropped to something almost approaching comfortable.

By day three I had stopped checking my phone for signal. By day five I had genuinely forgotten what day it was. The mishap of our arrival became family folklore, retold with increasing dramatic embellishment over dinner. I still maintain the carrier bag was defective.

We did venture out, of course. The beaches here are extraordinary, though reaching them often involves a scramble that would alarm a health and safety officer. We found one cove where the water was so clear it felt like a trick, like someone had forgotten to render the texture. The children snorkelled until their lips went blue. I sat on rocks and watched boats pass on the horizon, feeling smug about our choice.

But always we returned to the house, to that terrace and its particular quality of light, to the routine of simple meals and card games and the washing machine that had saved our first night. It is not a grand property. It does not need to be. It offers something better: the framework for a holiday that slows down without trying too hard, that lets the landscape and the rhythm of the days do the work.

On our final morning I packed with the reluctance that always comes with leaving a place that has unexpectedly become yours. The children had drawn pictures for the owner, mostly featuring lizards and what I believe was meant to be the sea. My wife found a forgotten sock behind the washing machine, a small souvenir of our chaotic arrival.

We drove away with the windows down, smelling the maquis one last time, the sat nav already suggesting routes I did not want to take. My youngest fell asleep almost immediately, untroubled by motion, her early misadventure long forgotten. I caught my wife's eye and she smiled, the sort of smile that carries whole conversations. We would be back, somehow, someday. The washing machine and I had unfinished business.