I have never been more grateful for a sat nav in my entire life, and I say that as someone who once got lost in their own local Tesco car park. The drive from Reus Airport to Sant Jaume dels Domenys had been going swimmingly until I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I knew better than Google Maps. Twenty minutes of increasingly narrow Catalan country lanes later, I found myself staring at a very confused goat and what I can only describe as a shed with aspirations. The goat and I shared a moment of mutual disappointment before I swallowed my pride, performed a seventeen-point turn, and let the robotic voice guide me properly.

When I finally pulled up to the villa, I was already half-melted from the August heat and sporting what I can only call a stress-induced fringe situation. But then I stepped out of the car, and something remarkable happened. Nothing. Absolutely nothing, and it was glorious. The sort of heavy, honeyed silence that makes you realise how much noise you normally put up with. Just cicadas, distant birds, and the faint creak of a shutter somewhere in the village below.

The villa itself sat perched among vineyards, all cream walls and terracotta roof tiles, with a pool that caught the afternoon light like someone had spilled a crate of gin bottles in the water. I dumped my suitcase in the hallway with the enthusiasm of a teenager abandoning a school bag and made straight for the terrace. There I remained, motionless, for approximately forty-five minutes. I watched a lizard watch me. We reached an understanding.

My first full day set the tone for everything that followed. I woke without an alarm, which felt almost illicit, and padded down to the kitchen in search of coffee. The previous owner had left behind a stovetop espresso maker, and I spent a happy twenty minutes figuring out how not to explode coffee grounds across the ceiling. Success came eventually, accompanied by a pastry from the village bakery I had spotted on my sheepish return journey the day before. I cannot tell you what it was called. I pointed and smiled like the linguistically challenged tourist I am. It was magnificent, whatever it was, all flaky and almond-scented and still warm.

The village of Sant Jaume dels Domenys itself demanded nothing more strenuous than a gentle wander. I pottered down to the local shop for supplies, nodding at elderly chaps on benches who nodded back with the serene acceptance of people who have long since mastered the art of doing very little in sunshine. The church bell marked the hours. I started measuring my days by it rather than by my phone, which spent most of the week face-down on a kitchen counter, sulking at its neglect.

I read three books that week, which is approximately three more than I had managed in the previous six months combined. There is something deeply satisfying about reading in a hammock, I have decided, particularly when you keep dozing off and losing your place, then waking to find the same paragraph has become mysteriously more interesting upon the third attempt. I swam when I grew warm, dried when I grew wet, and repeated this exhausting schedule until the light began to soften.

On my final evening, I sat by the pool with a glass of local Priorat wine and watched the vineyards turn gold, then rose, then grey. I thought about all the holidays where I had raced between sights, ticking boxes, returning home more tired than I had left. This had been different. I had done almost nothing, and somehow it had felt like everything. The goat, I decided, had probably been onto something after all.