I have never been so grateful for air conditioning in my entire life, and that includes the summer I spent working in a pizza kitchen. The drive from Malaga Airport to Olvera had seemed like a brilliant idea back in drizzly Manchester, but four hours into our journey, somewhere past Antequera, the hire car's climate control gave up the ghost with a pathetic wheeze. My partner Dave just looked at me, sweat already pooling in that little dip above his upper lip, and said, "You picked August, didn't you?" I had. I absolutely had.

The approach to Olvera itself nearly made up for it. You see the white village long before you arrive, clinging to its rocky outcrop like someone spilled a bag of sugar down a hillside. The castle and church tower above everything, proper fairy-tale stuff, except no fairy tale mentions the bit where your thighs stick to the car seat and you have to peel yourself off like a sticker from a banana. We wound up through narrow streets, the kind where you hold your breath and fold in the wing mirrors, following directions to our holiday home that grew increasingly vague. "Past the blue door," the message said. There were seventeen blue doors. Minimum.

We found it eventually, tucked on a quieter street where the afternoon sun had retreated just enough to make breathing possible. The key was in a lockbox, which sounds simple until you realise your fingers are too slippery to work the code. Dave had to do it, muttering something about "your desert holiday" that I chose to ignore. The door opened onto cool tiles and sudden, wonderful shade, and I actually said "oh thank Christ" out loud, which isn't very holiday-magazine of me but there we are.

August in Andalusia means everything happens later. We'd arrived at four, which felt reasonable to us, and the village was essentially shut. Proper shut. Not a soul, not an open tapas bar, just heat shimmering off the whitewash and the occasional cat giving us a look that said "tourists, honestly." We flopped onto the terrace furniture, discovered it was too hot to touch, and ended up standing in the kitchen drinking lukewarm water straight from the tap like animals. The pool, visible from our bedroom window, glimmered with cruel invitation. We'd been told it was shared, currently occupied by a German family who'd established territorial dominance with an impressive array of inflatables. Their youngest waved. We waved back, too defeated to challenge them.

By seven, something magical began. The light shifted from white-gold to something softer, amber-edged, and shutters started clacking open along our street. An old woman emerged with a watering can for her geraniums, nodding at us as if our sweaty dishevelment was completely normal. The bakery we'd assumed abandoned suddenly had a queue. Dave and I wandered out, still slightly dazed, and found a plaza where families were gathering, children shrieking round a fountain, grandparents on benches with their evening stroll pace perfected over decades.

We ate dinner at ten, which felt scandalously late, at a place where the waiter didn't even bother with menus because obviously we wanted the gazpacho and whatever fish was good. The heat of the day had settled into something you could almost wear comfortably, like a familiar jumper. Walking back, Olvera's streets were alive in a way they'd simply refused to be hours earlier, and I understood something I hadn't before: this rhythm wasn't inconvenience, it was survival, community, centuries of wisdom about when this landscape becomes bearable, then beautiful.

I picked August, and I don't entirely regret it. But next time, I'm picking October and pretending it was my idea all along.