I have never been so relieved to see a set of keys in a plastic box as I was when we finally rocked up to our little place in Lloret de Mar. The journey from Girona Airport had been straightforward enough, or so we thought, until I confidently directed my other half down what I swore was a shortcut. Forty minutes of increasingly narrow Catalan lanes later, with my phone insisting we were driving through someone's olive grove, we emerged onto the main road precisely two hundred metres from where we had turned off. I kept very quiet about this for the rest of the drive.

The property itself sat tucked away from the main bustle, and stepping through the door felt like exhaling after holding your breath all morning. The tiled floors were cool underfoot, the kind of cool that makes you kick off your sandals and pad about like a cat. I made straight for the terrace, shoved the doors open with more enthusiasm than grace, and there it was: a sliver of sea visible between the trees, enough to promise proper beach time without demanding it immediately. I decided right then that demanding anything was entirely against the spirit of this holiday.

We had packed three novels between us, which now seems almost embarrassingly ambitious. My partner had brought some doorstop of a thriller they never touched, preferring instead to doze in the lounger with a straw hat over their face. I worked through a tatty paperback mystery from the airport shop, reading the same paragraph three times because the warmth on my legs kept sending me into that pleasant, half-awake state where plot becomes entirely optional. The pages got a bit warped from condensation on my glass of orxata, but that only added to the charm.

Mornings settled into an easy pattern. Someone would shuffle to the kitchen in search of coffee, usually me, since I wake at the first suggestion of light. I would stand at the little window watching the town below stretch itself awake, the baker's van doing its rounds, an old chap walking his terrier with the unhurried pace of someone with nowhere particular to be. By the time the coffee was ready, my partner would have emerged, squinting and grumbling, and we would take our cups outside to plan our strenuous schedule of absolutely nothing.

When we did stir ourselves, it was for the gentlest of local explorations. The Mercat Municipal became a favourite haunt, not for any grand purpose but for the pleasure of selecting tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, and watching the fishmonger shout cheerful abuse at his mate across the aisle. We would carry our bits back and assemble some lunch that felt vaguely Mediterranean, though I suspect our attempts at pan con tomate would make a Catalan grandmother weep into her apron. It tasted fine to us, eaten standing at the counter with olive oil dripping down our wrists.

The beach we favoured was not the main strip, which even in late September still attracted its crowds, but a smaller cove we found by following a path that looked like it might lead somewhere interesting. It did, though getting down involved a bit of undignified scrambling that I chose to view as character-building. Once there, we would spread our towels, apply suncream with the religious devotion of the recently burned, and resume our horizontal positions. I swam perhaps twice a day, just enough to feel virtuous, then returned to my patch of sand feeling pleasantly tired in that way that only salt water and sunshine can achieve.

Evenings brought their own lazy rituals. We found a bar where the barman remembered our order by the second visit, which felt like being accepted into some secret society. A glass of chilled vermut, some anchovies we would never have touched at home, watching the light fade and the promenade lights flicker on. We talked, or didn't, with the comfortable ease of people who have temporarily escaped the tyranny of schedules and notifications.

On our last morning, I packed with the reluctance of a child leaving a party. My novel remained unfinished, which seemed exactly right. Some things should be left suspended, waiting for the next time you allow yourself to stop moving. I took one last coffee on the terrace, watching the same old chap with the same terrier, both still in no particular hurry. I thought about our wrong turn on arrival, and how sometimes getting slightly lost is exactly what you need to find the right pace. Then we locked up, returned the keys to their plastic box, and drove back to the airport by the main road without a single shortcut.