I have never been so pleased to see a washing machine in my life. Thirty-six hours after leaving my flat in Manchester, I stood in the kitchen of our Torre dei Corsari apartment, staring at a pair of damp trousers that had suffered an unfortunate encounter with a ferry toilet during the crossing from Civitavecchia to Olbia. The less said about that particular adventure, the better. Suffice it to say that my travelling companion, my sister Karen, has already promised to bring it up at every family gathering for the next decade.

The drive from Olbia had been spectacular, in that exhausting, white-knuckle way that Sardinian roads tend to be. Karen had insisted on navigating, which meant alternating between dramatic gasps at coastal drops and complete silence when I needed a direction. We wound south through Macomer and then west toward the coast, the landscape shifting from scrubby maquis to something more properly wild and wind-sculpted. The last stretch along the SP83 felt almost lunar, granite outcrops giving way suddenly to glimpses of the Med, that particular blue that makes you understand why people write poems about this island.

Torre dei Corsari announced itself with a modest sign and then a scattering of low buildings clinging to hillside terraces. Our apartment complex sat above the village proper, a collection of pastel-washed units with terracotta roofs and balconies that seemed to hang over the coastline. I had chosen it partly for the sea view, partly because the description mentioned a shared swimming pool, and largely because it had a washing machine. At that particular moment, the washing machine was winning.

The key was in a lockbox, which of course we could not open. Karen tried the code three times while I held the instructions at various angles, as if Italian numbers might be directional. A neighbour emerged from the next unit, tanned to the colour of well-worn leather, and silently pointed to a different box entirely. We had been attempting to break into someone's storage cupboard. He did not laugh, which somehow made it worse.

The apartment itself smelled of clean linen and distant salt. Terracotta tiles underfoot, whitewashed walls, furniture that was perfectly functional and entirely unremarkable. I made straight for the balcony while Karen investigated the kitchen with the particular intensity of someone who has been living on motorway sandwiches and ferry coffee. The view stopped me properly for the first time since Manchester. The sea lay below in graduated blues, the Scivu beach curving away to the south, and the old Spanish tower standing sentinel on its rocky promontory. The afternoon light was doing that golden thing, turning everything slightly unreal. I stood there in my emergency shorts, the ones Karen had dug from the bottom of her suitcase, and felt something in my chest unclench.

I should mention that I am not naturally a holiday person. I worry about work emails. I pack for every contingency and then pack again. The damp trousers incident had seemed, at the time, like confirmation of my fundamental unsuitability for leisure. But standing on that balcony, with Karen shouting something triumphant about there being actual olive oil in the kitchen, I caught myself thinking that perhaps the trousers did not matter. Perhaps very little mattered, momentarily.

The pool lay below us, deserted in that late afternoon hush. A few sun loungers stood about in attitudes of abandonment. Somewhere a dog barked, and was answered by another. The village itself seemed to be taking a breath before evening, that particular Mediterranean rhythm that always takes me a few days to adjust to. Everything slower. Everything waiting.

We walked down to the village as the light faded, found a small bar still open, and sat with beers that tasted of the relief of arrival. The barman spoke no English, we spoke barely any Italian, and the transaction took an embarrassing number of gestures. Karen knocked her beer slightly while demonstrating something about the ferry toilet, and we both laughed until we had to wipe our eyes. The trousers were already spinning in the machine. Tomorrow we would explore properly, perhaps attempt the beach, certainly buy groceries with more pointing and confusion. For now, we sat with our drinks and watched the last light leave the tower on its rocky point, and I thought that this was exactly enough.