I have never been so pleased to see a toilet brush in all my life. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The journey to Sardinia had been one of those travel days that starts with misplaced optimism and ends with a sort of delirious acceptance. We flew into Olbia, picked up the hire car, and promptly spent forty-five minutes circling the same roundabout near the airport because I refused to admit my phone had lost signal. My wife sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression she has, the one that says she is being patient but also mentally updating her will. The children had begun a competitive whining contest in the back. By the time we reached the SS125 coastal road, I had promised ice cream, pizza, and a puppy. We were still negotiating on the puppy.

Marina di Orosei sits on Sardinia's eastern coast, a proper working town rather than one of those glossy resorts that could be anywhere. The NOVASOL property we had booked was down a quiet lane, a modest cottage-style place with terracotta roof tiles and a small garden that had clearly seen some action from previous families' football games. I reversed the hire car into the driveway with the confidence of a man who had just spent two hours driving on the wrong side of the road, and promptly scraped the wing mirror against a potted lemon tree. The tree survived. My dignity did not.

The key was in the lockbox, which I could not open. This is where the toilet brush comes in. After five minutes of jabbing at the thing with increasingly desperate combinations, I spotted the cleaning cupboard round the back, left open by the previous guests or perhaps by some merciful holiday deity. Inside, wedged behind a mop and that very toilet brush, was the spare key. I have never felt such a complex mixture of triumph and shame.

But stepping inside changed everything. The place had that particular smell of a proper holiday let, somewhere between fresh linen and distant sea air. The kitchen was compact but genuinely equipped, not one of those decorative setups with a single blunt knife and a teaspoon. My daughter immediately claimed the smaller bedroom with the twin beds. My son discovered the terrace and began planning his empire. My wife opened the fridge, found it empty and clean, and made a small satisfied noise that I have learned to interpret as approval.

I made a pot of terrible coffee with the moka pot I found in the cupboard, because I am a man who believes he can operate Italian coffee equipment without instruction. We sat on the terrace as the afternoon light turned golden and watched a neighbour hang washing with the rhythmic efficiency of someone who has done this for forty summers. The children stopped bickering, momentarily stunned by the foreignness of everything, by the cicadas and the distant sound of a dog and the particular quality of silence that comes from not being at home.

That first evening we walked the ten minutes to the town's main strip, if you can call it that. Marina di Orosei does not do strips. It does a handful of restaurants, a gelateria with queues that move at Sardinian pace, and a harbour where fishermen mend nets in the late light. We ate spaghetti alle vongole at a place where the owner seemed faintly surprised we had found him. The children were too tired to complain about the lack of chips. We walked back in darkness, my son holding my hand without embarrassment because he was disorientated by tiredness, and I felt that particular holiday feeling settle over me, the one where you realise you have briefly stepped outside your ordinary life.

Back at the cottage, my wife found the washing machine and immediately began a load, because some habits travel even when you are determined to relax. I sat on the terrace with a cheap Sardinian beer and listened to the night. Somewhere, that lemon tree stood wounded but undefeated. The toilet brush sat in its cupboard, my unlikely hero. Tomorrow we would find the beach, buy groceries from the small supermarket near the harbour, settle into the rhythm of doing very little with great intention. But that first night was about arrival, about the particular magic of a place becoming yours through small discoveries and minor disasters. I finished my beer and went inside, leaving the terrace door open to the warm air, already half in love with a holiday that had barely begun.