I have never been particularly gifted at reading sat navs, which is how I found myself reversing down a one-way farm track somewhere near Middelburg with a suitcase sliding about in the back and my partner doing that peculiar breathing thing she does when she is trying not to say something unhelpful. The mishap, if you can call forty-five minutes of agricultural tourism a mishap, began with my confident assertion that I knew a shortcut. I did not know a shortcut. What I knew was how to turn a ninety-minute drive from Rotterdam into something approaching an odyssey, complete with confused sheep and a farmer who waved at us with what I choose to believe was fond amusement.

We arrived at the holiday home in Oost Souburg in that particular state of mild hysteria that follows prolonged mutual blamelessness. The key was in the lockbox, the code worked first time, and I will admit to a small theatrical flourish as I opened the door, as though I had personally arranged the whole thing. Then we stepped inside and promptly stopped talking.

The place had that rare quality of being immediately, uncomplicatedly right. Not trying too hard, not aggressively designed, just calm. Wooden floors, decent light, a kitchen that suggested someone actually cooked there rather than merely photographed it. I put the kettle on mostly so I would have something purposeful to do while my brain adjusted to the fact that we had nowhere to be and nothing to prove.

The garden was where we spent that first afternoon, gradually unfolding ourselves from the car like travellers from a much longer journey. There was a small patio, some weathered furniture, and sunshine that felt almost embarrassingly generous given the effort we had put into reaching it. I read the same paragraph of my novel approximately eleven times, not because it was difficult but because concentration felt suddenly optional, like fancy dress at a party where nobody else had bothered. My partner dozed with her book face-down on her chest. A bee investigated my tea. I did not mind.

Oost Souburg itself revealed itself slowly, which suited us perfectly. We wandered to the village centre on the second day, moving at what I can only describe as botanical garden pace, pausing to examine nothing in particular. There is a certain pleasure in being somewhere that does not demand your attention, that simply lets you exist in it. We bought bread from a bakery where the woman seemed genuinely pleased to see us, which I found disproportionately moving after years of transactional London interactions. The bread was excellent. We carried it home like a trophy.

The rest of the week established its own rhythm without any consultation from us. Mornings in the garden with coffee and the occasional ambitious crossword attempt. Afternoon walks to nowhere in particular, sometimes along the canal, sometimes through the quiet streets where people kept their curtains open without apparent concern. I became briefly obsessed with a particular boat moored nearby, checking on it daily as though it were a pet. It never did anything. This was the point.

We did visit the beach at Dishoek one afternoon, because it would have felt negligent not to, and it was pleasant in the way that North Sea beaches are pleasant: bracing, honest, not trying to seduce you. We stayed two hours, which felt sufficient. The real holiday was happening back at the house, in the accumulated hours of not achieving anything.

On our final evening, I cooked badly while my partner opened wine and we sat outside until the light went, talking about whether we should do this more often and knowing we probably would not, not because we did not want to but because life makes you forget how necessary doing nothing can be. I left my novel on the bedside table, spine cracked, maybe a third finished. I have never finished it. I think I prefer it that way.