I have never been so happy to see a roundabout in my life. After two flights, a hire car upgrade I definitely did not need, and forty-five minutes of me gripping the steering wheel like I was defusing a bomb on the wrong side of the road, I finally spotted the turning for Calahonda. Relief lasted approximately four seconds, which is how long it took me to realise I had been cheerfully following my sat nav to a golf course in Mijas instead of the actual village near Nerja. Classic. There I was, middle of nowhere, surrounded by immaculate fairways and men in pastel trousers, while my actual holiday home sat thirty miles east wondering where its idiot British tourist had got to.

The second attempt went better, mostly because I abandoned technology and followed a man with a loaf of bread under each arm. He led me through winding streets that grew progressively narrower and more charming until I found myself outside a low white building with terracotta pots and a bougainvillea doing its absolute best to take over the entire facade. I had arrived. Sweaty, slightly delirious, but arrived.

The key was in a lockbox that defeated me for a solid ten minutes. I am convinced these things exist purely to humble people after long journeys. Eventually I cracked it, stumbled through the door, and was immediately struck by that particular hush of a Spanish afternoon when the world has sensibly decided to nap. The tiles were cool under my feet. Somewhere distant, a dog barked once and apparently thought better of it. I dumped my bags in the nearest corner and made straight for the terrace, where I discovered a view of the sea that actually made me laugh out loud. Not a polite chuckle. A proper, unguarded laugh. All that sat nav trauma, instantly forgiven.

The first thing I did was absolutely nothing. This cannot be overstated. I sat in a wicker chair that creaked companionably beneath me, and I simply existed. The sun was warm rather than brutal, filtered through a pergola draped with what I later learned was jasmine. A gecko appeared on the wall, observed me with evident disappointment, and departed. I felt this was fair. I was not offering much entertainment.

By late afternoon I roused myself sufficiently to investigate the kitchen, which turned out to be one of those Spanish kitchens that assumes you actually want to cook rather than just microwave sadness. I found olive oil in a tin the size of a paint can, garlic hanging in a braid like a still-life painting, and tomatoes that smelled of actual tomatoes. This was dangerous. I could feel holiday me emerging, the version who buys fresh bread daily and considers a siesta a moral imperative rather than a luxury.

The next morning I walked to the local shop, a journey of perhaps eight minutes that took twenty because I kept stopping to admire walls. Andalusia has the best walls. Crumbling, whitewashed, occasionally sporting a ceramic plate or a shrine to someone saintly. The shopkeeper greeted my dreadful Spanish with such patient encouragement that I bought approximately twice as many provisions as intended, including something I thought was cheese but may have been a candle. We will never know. I did not care.

Back at the house, I established a routine so blissfully unambitious it bordered on performance art. Morning coffee on the terrace with a book I had been pretending to read since March. A slow wander to the beach, where I would paddle with the enthusiasm of a pensioner and retreat before any actual swimming occurred. Lunch of bread and tomatoes and that possibly-cheese, eaten with my fingers while staring at the horizon. Afternoon reading in a different chair, because variety matters. An evening stroll for more bread, because the bread here demands repeat custom.

On the third day I attempted a walk to the next cove along the coast path. I made it approximately two hundred metres before encountering an elderly man harvesting wild asparagus, who insisted on explaining the entire history of the headland to me in rapid Spanish. I understood perhaps one word in ten but stood there nodding with genuine pleasure for twenty minutes. He gave me a handful of asparagus. I gave him my best attempt at gratitude. We parted mutually delighted, and I returned to my terrace with my ambitions thoroughly curtailed.

That became the pattern. Small adventures, smaller distances. I read three books without retaining a single plot. I learned the exact time the sun hit the left side of the terrace and when it became necessary to shift right. I discovered that the gecko visited every evening at approximately six, presumably to judge my life choices. I never did find out what that candle-cheese was, but I spread it on toast regardless and felt like a king.

The mishap with the sat nav became my favourite holiday story, told to no one because I was alone and perfectly content. That wrong turn had delivered me to pastel-trousered golfers and a minor panic, but it also made the eventual arrival feel earned. The lazy days meant more because of it. The nothing I achieved felt like genuine accomplishment.

On my final morning I packed with the reluctance of a child leaving a party. The jasmine had started to flower properly, filling the terrace with a sweetness that felt almost excessive, as if the place was showing off. I took one last coffee in my creaking chair, watched the gecko make his final inspection, and decided that doing very little in the sunshine might be the most something I had done in years.