I have never been so relieved to see a swimming pool in my life, and that includes the time I nearly walked into a hotel fountain in Tenerife. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The journey to Montecorto had started well enough. My partner had done the sensible thing and booked us a proper cottage-style break in Andalusia, somewhere quiet with a pool and enough space that our two children could stop arguing about whose turn it was on the tablet. We flew into Malaga, picked up the hire car, and set off into the hills of the Serrania de Ronda feeling rather pleased with ourselves. Spanish motorways, blue skies, olive groves stretching for miles. This was the life.

Then came the mishap. About twenty minutes from the village, I decided I was absolutely capable of navigating using memory and a vague sense of direction. My partner had printed directions, which I now realise was not old-fashioned stubbornness but actual wisdom. I missed the turning for Montecorto, carried on through some increasingly narrow lanes, and eventually found myself on a dirt track that seemed to lead nowhere except into a field of very surprised goats. One of them stared at me with what I can only describe as disappointed recognition. I reversed for what felt like half a mile while my children provided a running commentary from the back seat that was neither helpful nor kind.

By the time we actually found the place, we were forty minutes late, slightly frazzled, and I had promised my family ice cream for a week. But then we turned into the driveway, and everything else fell away.

The villa sat there looking terribly unbothered by our drama, all whitewashed walls and terracotta roof tiles with the mountains rising behind it like a painted backdrop. A proper Andalusian country house, not trying too hard, just existing in that effortless Spanish way that makes you feel instantly scruffy by comparison. My daughter spotted the pool first and made a noise I have not heard since she believed in Father Christmas.

The owner, a cheerful local woman whose English was far better than my Spanish, showed us round with the relaxed patience of someone who has definitely met flustered British families before. The kitchen opened straight onto a covered terrace with a long wooden table, the sort of space designed for lazy lunches that turn into dinners. Inside, everything was cool and simple, tiled floors and wooden beams, nothing fussy or overdone. It felt like somewhere actual people lived, not a show home where you are afraid to touch anything.

I stood on that terrace with a glass of something cold that evening, watching the light change over the hills, and felt the last of my navigational shame finally dissolve. The children were already in the pool again, my partner was reading a book without looking at her phone, and somewhere in the village below I could hear the faint sound of church bells. That is the thing about a cottage holiday, I think. You arrive in chaos, you unpack your bad habits along with your suitcases, and slowly the place teaches you how to be still again. Or at least how to get lost more gracefully next time.