I have never been brilliant with directions, which is how I found myself circling the same roundabout in Puerto Rico three times, arguing with a sat nav that had apparently decided I needed a tour of every petrol station in southern Gran Canaria. My other half was doing that tight-lipped smile that means "I told you to screenshot the directions," and the kids had started a game of who could spot the most abandoned sun loungers. Holiday magic was already in full swing.

We were bound for a little place up the hillside, a proper cottage-style holiday home with a private pool and one of those terraces where you imagine yourself sipping something cold while the sun goes down. The reality, of course, involved me reversing into a hedge while a local dog watched with what I can only describe as professional disappointment.

When we finally arrived, dusty and slightly defeated, the first thing that struck me was the quiet. Puerto Rico itself is lively enough in the lower reaches, all restaurants and beachfront bustle, but up where we were perched, you could hear nothing but the odd distant splash from a neighbour's pool and the whir of a ceiling fan. The villa sat there in typical Canarian style, whitewashed walls and terracotta touches, looking like it had been patiently waiting for someone exactly like us to turn up frazzled and in need of a cold drink.

I will not pretend the first hour was graceful. I unpacked the entire car before realising I had left the supermarket bag with all the milk and bread sitting on the kitchen counter of our Airbnb from three nights previous in Maspalomas. This is standard operating procedure for me. There was a small supermarket a stroll down the hill, which saved us from a breakfast crisis, though my youngest insisted she could absolutely manage with crisps and a mango Fanta. Parenting standards were already slipping, and we had not even been there a full afternoon.

The pool was the saving grace. Nothing fancy, just a decent-sized rectangle of blue with a few loungers around it, but after the drive and my navigational humiliation, lowering myself into that water felt like a religious experience. The kids were in before I could issue the usual warnings about waiting after eating, and I found myself not caring one bit. That is the thing about a cottage-style break, I think. The pressure to be anywhere or do anything particular just melts away. No hotel buffet to rush for, no entertainment schedule to consult. Just your own little space and the slow realisation that you have absolutely nowhere to be.

The terrace became our headquarters. Morning coffees while the hills turned golden, evening barbecues where we inevitably burned the sausages and convinced ourselves the charred bits added flavour. We could see down towards the marina, little boats bobbing about, and beyond that the Atlantic doing its usual shimmering routine. It is the sort of view that makes you feel slightly smug about your life choices, at least temporarily.

By day three I had stopped checking my phone every ten minutes. By day five I had read an actual book, something I had been claiming I would do since approximately 2019. The kids were permanently slightly damp and vaguely sandy, which is surely the correct state for children on holiday. We did venture down to the beach at Puerto Rico proper a couple of times, because the bay there is genuinely lovely and the promenade walk gives you that pleasant sense of having exercised without actually trying very hard. But mostly we stayed put, floating in the pool, arguing over card games, eating too much cheese from the local Mercadona.

What I keep thinking about now, back in drizzly normality, is that particular rhythm of a self-catering place done properly. The small rituals of it. The morning decision about whether today is a pool day or a venture-out day, usually settled by whoever gets to the terrace first. The slightly chaotic evening meals where everyone pitches in badly and nobody minds. The moment you realise you have not thought about work emails in forty-eight hours and the world has somehow not ended.

I would like to claim I returned a changed person, full of wisdom and permanently zen. The truth is I came back with a sunburned shoulder, a newfound addiction to Canarian potatoes with mojo sauce, and the same terrible sense of direction. But for that week in our little hillside cottage, with its modest pool and its perfect terrace and its complete indifference to whether I was achieving anything at all, I felt genuinely, uncomplicatedly content. And honestly, that is quite enough of a holiday win for me.