I have never been very good at packing light, and my journey to San Bartolome de Tirajana proved it in spectacular fashion. There I was at Manchester Airport, smug as you like with my cabin bag, when the nice lady at check-in asked if I had anything in my pockets. I patted myself down, felt a strange rectangular bulge, and pulled out the kitchen scales from my own kitchen. Not a travel scales. My actual kitchen scales, mains plug and all. I still have no memory of putting them in my coat pocket at half past five that morning. The queue behind me had that particular British stillness of people pretending not to notice while absolutely noticing. I laughed, she laughed, and I spent the flight wondering what other household appliances I might discover about my person.

The drive from Gran Canaria airport took us up through winding roads where the landscape shifts from coastal bustle to something altogether more dramatic. Volcanic ridges rose on either side, and the temperature climbed pleasantly as we gained altitude. My partner drove while I clutched my phone navigation and the kitchen scales, which I had refused to abandon in a Manchester bin out of sheer stubbornness.

Arriving at the property, I immediately understood why people return to these parts year after year. The villa sat nestled into the hillside with a private terrace that looked out towards the distant sea, though honestly the immediate surroundings demanded all my attention first. A small pool glinted in the afternoon light, and someone had left a bougainvillea absolutely going for it in a terracotta pot by the door. The key was exactly where promised, and the door opened with that satisfying clunk of proper Spanish engineering.

My first impression, once I had stopped sweating and deposited the scales on the kitchen counter with theatrical ceremony, was of space designed for doing very little indeed. The living area opened directly onto that terrace through glass doors, and someone had clearly understood that the boundary between inside and outside should be negotiable at best. I found myself a sun lounger within approximately ninety seconds of arrival, and there I remained for what felt like several hours but might have been several days. Time becomes elastic in that kind of heat.

I had brought three books and finished none of them, which I consider the mark of a genuinely successful holiday. The intention to read thoroughly outweighed the actual reading, and somehow that felt completely appropriate. I would read a chapter, find my eyes wandering to a distant ridge or a passing cloud, and simply let the book rest on my chest like a small sleeping animal. The sun moved across the terrace, and I moved with it, shifting my lounger in a slow rotation that must have looked like some peculiar sundial from above.

The village itself revealed itself gradually, which suited my pace entirely. A morning stroll to the nearest shop for bread and terrible coffee became my daily expedition. I never learned to make proper Spanish coffee in the villa either, despite the kitchen scales sitting there mocking my domestic pretensions. Some things are best left to professionals, and the little cafe round the corner made something excellent with milk that I never quite identified.

Evenings brought that particular quality of mountain air that makes you feel genuinely healthy despite having done absolutely nothing to earn it. We would grill something simple on the terrace, watch the last light fade from the ridges, and discuss whether we ought to plan something for tomorrow. We never did, and that was the whole point. The scales remained on the kitchen counter throughout, a small monument to the absurdity of bringing your ordinary life on holiday and discovering you never needed it anyway.