I have never been so relieved to see a front door in my entire life. Seventeen hours after leaving Bristol, there I stood in Llanes, Asturias, clutching a hire car key and a rapidly disintegrating packet of motorway crisps, wondering if my legs still functioned properly. The mishap? Oh, that came about three hours earlier, somewhere near Bilbao, when I confidently marched into what I thought was a service station toilet and walked straight into a cleaner's cupboard. The poor woman inside looked about as startled as I felt. I mumbled something that was meant to be Spanish but sounded more like a strangled apology in Klingon, then fled. Dignity slightly bruised, bladder still full, I pressed on.

The final stretch into Asturias is something else though. The motorway gives way to winding roads that snake through green mountains so lush you half expect a dinosaur to appear. My little hire car wheezed up hills like an asthmatic tortoise. I kept the windows down, letting in that sharp northern Spanish air that smells of pine and sea salt and something else I could not quite place. Eucalyptus, maybe? Or just the general scent of finally being on holiday.

Llanes itself appeared suddenly, tucked into its little bay like a secret someone had forgotten to keep properly hidden. The town has that lovely jumble of old stone buildings and fishing harbour atmosphere, all narrow streets and unexpected glimpses of the Cantabrian Sea between houses. I had been warned not to attempt driving into the old centre, advice I wisely followed after my earlier display of competence. Instead I followed the coastal road round, watching the light change on the water, until I found the turning I needed.

The property sat up a gentle lane, nothing flashy, just a solid Asturian house with a garden that had clearly been loved by someone with patience and decent knees. Mine were currently protesting the seventeen-hour sit-down, so I approached the garden with something between admiration and jealousy. There was a stone bench under a tree, a terrace with a table that looked perfect for evening wine, and everywhere that particular green that only seems to happen where it rains properly. The north of Spain does not mess about with precipitation. I had packed for Mediterranean sunshine like an absolute fool.

The key was exactly where promised, which felt miraculous given my current run of form. The front door opened with a satisfying weight to it, none of your flimsy modern nonsense. Inside, the house smelled of clean linen and wood polish and that faint, comforting mustiness of somewhere that spends winter closed up. The sitting room had exposed beams, actual proper ones that looked like they had been holding the ceiling up since before my grandmother was born. A fireplace dominated one wall, and I immediately began fantasising about lighting it despite the mild September evening. Some instincts run deeper than logic.

I dumped my bags with the theatrical exhaustion of someone who had definitely just survived an ordeal, then wandered through to the kitchen. It was simple, functional, with a window overlooking that garden. Someone had left a bottle of local cider on the counter, which I took as both welcome and challenge. Asturian cider is not so much poured as theatrically splashed from height, a technique I had read about and immediately decided not to attempt indoors after my day so far.

The bedroom upstairs had wooden shutters that opened with a satisfying clatter onto a view of rolling hills. I stood there in my socks, still slightly vibrating from the drive, and felt something in my shoulders finally release. The bed looked inviting but I was not ready to surrender yet. There was exploring to do, however minimal.

I forced myself out for a brief wander, just down to the nearest bit of coast, perhaps twenty minutes on foot. The path was edged with wild fennel and something purple I could not identify. The evening light was doing that golden thing it does before sunset, turning everything slightly magical. I found a spot on the rocky shore and sat, watching the sea move against the cliffs, listening to nothing much except waves and the occasional distant cowbell. My ridiculous toilet incident, the cramped driving, the general absurdity of long-distance travel, it all seemed to belong to someone else's story now.

Walking back, slightly stiff, slightly hungry, I passed an older man tending tomatoes in his garden. He nodded. I nodded back. Neither of us attempted conversation, which suited my current language confidence perfectly. The house waited up the lane, lights beginning to come on in neighbouring windows, that particular early-evening hush of a place where people live actual lives rather than just perform tourism.

I made myself a simple supper from supplies grabbed at a supermarket I barely remembered stopping at. Cheese, bread, some tomatoes that actually tasted of something, and a cautious glass of that cider poured at modest height. Ate at the kitchen table with the garden going grey outside, too tired to be properly philosophical but aware enough to notice the feeling. Contentment, perhaps. Or just the profound relief of arrival after too long in transit.

Bed claimed me early, earlier than I manage at home, sleep dragging me under like the tide I could still hear if I listened carefully. I did not dream of motorways or cleaning cupboards. I dreamed of green hills and the particular weight of a proper wooden door closing behind you, of being somewhere that felt, already, despite everything, like it might let you rest.