I have never been so pleased to see a volcanic rock in all my life. After a flight that felt longer than my entire secondary education, followed by a taxi driver who treated the LZ-2 like his personal qualifying lap, we finally pulled up to our little place in Playa Blanca. I was already half-asleep, sun-cream smeared across my forehead like a badge of honour, when I committed the classic holiday blunder. I opened the boot, grabbed what I thought was my partner's bag, and promptly watched my own wheelie case roll gracefully down the slight incline of the driveway, picking up speed with an enthusiasm I hadn't managed all morning. It careered into a low garden wall with a satisfying thud, popped open, and deposited three weeks' worth of pants directly onto a very confused-looking aloe vera plant. Welcome to Lanzarote.

The villa itself, once I'd recovered my dignity and my underwear, turned out to be exactly the sort of place that undoes you completely. Whitewashed walls, a small terrace with a view of that impossible blue sea, and a pool that caught the afternoon light like someone had spilled liquid gold into it. I stood there in my still-warm travel clothes, holding a lukewarm can of Estrella from the welcome pack, and felt something in my shoulders give up. Not give up in a bad way. Give up like a surrender. Like finally admitting you've been holding your breath for months and nobody asked you to.

Playa Blanca has that quality, I think. It doesn't demand anything of you. The first morning, I woke without an alarm for the first time since I can't remember when, made terrible coffee in the little kitchen, and took it outside in pants and a t-shirt that had seen better decades. The sun was already doing its proper job, warm without that oppressive humidity you get elsewhere. I sat on a plastic lounger that creaked ominously under my post-flight bloat, and I did absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Watched a lizard make its way across the terrace with the confidence of something that has never once worried about a deadline. Read the same paragraph of my paperback four times without retaining a single word. Felt genuinely proud of myself for this achievement.

We wandered down to the promenade that evening, just a gentle stroll that took maybe twenty minutes at the pace of people who have nowhere to be. The old harbour was starting to glow in that particular Lanzarote light, all pinks and oranges bouncing off whitewash. Ate grilled prawns somewhere simple, drank more wine than was strictly necessary, and walked back full and slow and slightly sun-touched. Someone was playing Spanish guitar from a balcony somewhere. Probably a recording. Didn't matter.

The days since have settled into a rhythm so lazy it barely qualifies as rhythm. Morning coffee by the pool. A swim when the water looks too inviting to resist. Perhaps a walk to the local shop for bread and cheese and whatever looks good, carried back in a plastic bag that splits slightly and makes you walk like a penguin. Afternoon reading in whatever patch of shade seems kindest. Sometimes I nap with my book on my chest like a religious artefact. Sometimes I just watch the light move across the terrace tiles and count that as an activity.

Yesterday I attempted to walk to the beach at Playa Dorada, got distracted by a cafe selling excellent tortilla, and never made it. This is, I have decided, the entire point. My partner has started doing watercolours of the cactus in the garden. They are terrible. She knows they are terrible. She is having the time of her life.

I keep thinking I should plan something. A trip to see the green lagoon, perhaps, or one of the famous vineyards. But then the morning comes round again, and the coffee tastes right, and the lizard reappears on his patrol, and I find that planning anything feels like an act of violence against this strange, sweet nothing I'm doing instead. There is a peculiar joy in being somewhere that asks so little of you, in discovering that your own company, stripped of routine and obligation, is actually decent enough.

Tomorrow, perhaps, we might walk to the marina proper. Or we might not. I have three hundred pages left in my novel, and the pool is calling my name in the particular silent way that pools do. My pants are safely stored now, incidentally. I check on them occasionally, like a farmer with prize livestock. Some lessons you only need to learn once, preferably in front of a very patient taxi driver and a succulent.

The volcanic rock is still there, by the way. I pass it every time I fetch the washing in. It has, I have decided, seen worse than my briefs.