I have never been so happy to see a set of keys in a plastic box in my entire life. Twelve hours, two flights, one hire car that smelled strongly of air freshener and regret, and a final forty-minute trundle down Sardinian roads later, we finally pulled up at our Costa Rei holiday let. The mishap? I had spent the last hour of the drive absolutely convinced we were staying in Villasimius. I had done the classic thing of mixing up two properties I had browsed weeks ago and confidently directed my partner down entirely the wrong stretch of coast. There was a moment, somewhere near Capo Ferrato, when the sat nav started making that disappointed tutting noise it does, and I had to quietly admit that I might have been "a bit creative" with my navigation. My partner's expression suggested "creative" was not the word he would have chosen.

The property itself sits in that lovely scrubby Mediterranean landscape you dream about during a British winter, all low stone walls and wild rosemary and that particular quality of light that makes everything look slightly golden. Costa Rei is essentially a string of sandy bays along the southeastern coast, less flashy than the Costa Smeralda up north, which suited us perfectly. The development is one of those purpose-built holiday complexes that could feel soulless but somehow does not, partly because the gardens are genuinely established, with actual mature palms and bougainvillea that has been allowed to go properly feral across the balconies.

Our first job was the supermarket run, which I insisted on doing immediately despite everyone's exhaustion. This is my particular holiday compulsion, the need to stock a kitchen before I can relax, inherited from my mother who would unpack and do a full shop within ninety minutes of any arrival anywhere. The local Conad was heaving with other people doing exactly the same thing, all of us slightly dazed, all of us buying too much pecorino. I got overexcited by the fresh pasta section and dropped a tub of ricotta, which split open in spectacular fashion across the tiled floor. A very kind elderly man patted my arm and said something in Sardinian that I absolutely did not understand but took to mean "there there, we have all been the tourist with the ricotta."

Back at the flat, the first proper look around revealed the usual holiday rental quirks. The washing machine instructions were entirely in German. The shower had two settings, apparently glacial and slightly too intimate. But the terrace, that first evening, made every cramped budget airline inch worth it. We sat out with supermarket wine and those little Sardinian breadsticks that are essentially edible pencils, watching the light fade and listening to someone nearby attempting to barbecue with more enthusiasm than skill. The smell of slightly burning sausages drifted over. It felt like the official start of something.

I think what struck me most, that first night, was the particular quiet of the place. Not silence, exactly, because you could hear the sea if you concentrated, and distant voices from other terraces, and those odd clicking insects that sound like someone very small doing DIY. But a kind of spacious quiet, the opposite of our flat in London where every noise competes. I sat there with my feet up on a plastic chair, still slightly sticky from the journey, and felt that particular holiday feeling of having absolutely nothing urgent to do for days. It is a feeling I am terrible at achieving deliberately, which is probably why I need to travel somewhere to find it.

The ricotta incident notwithstanding, we were off to a decent start.