I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when I tried to unlock the wrong front door. There we were, me and my partner, standing in the afternoon heat of Selva with three suitcases and a hire car full of snacks, jiggling a key that absolutely would not turn. I was muttering something about dodgy Spanish locks and wondering if I should ring the agent, when a very polite German chap emerged from the actual property next door and pointed us twenty metres down the lane. Turns out "Ses Rentadores" was not the stone cottage with the blue shutters. It was the slightly less picturesque but infinitely more welcoming finca with the terracotta pots and the lemon tree that smelled like heaven.

The drive from Palma had been straightforward enough, though I had insisted on taking the scenic route through the Serra de Tramuntana, which added forty minutes and one mild argument about whether I had missed the turning for Inca. I had, obviously. But the mountain roads were worth it, all twisty and dramatic with olive groves clinging to hillsides that looked too steep for anything sensible. By the time we dropped down into the Pla de Mallorca, I was ready to never drive again, and my partner had developed that particular silent tension that means "I will let you navigate but I will not enjoy it."

Selva itself appeared like a promise. A proper Mallorcan village, not the sort that has been polished for tourists but one where actual people live actual lives. The church bell struck the hour as we finally found the right door. Inside, the coolness hit us first, that thick-walled, shuttered coolness that makes you want to exhale for what feels like the first time in months. The kitchen had terracotta tiles and a proper old fireplace. The sitting room had bookshelves with a chaotic mix of languages, paperbacks with cracked spines and that particular sun-bleached look of books that have done hard time by pools.

I picked one up immediately, some detective novel in English that someone had left behind in 2019 judging by the EasyJet boarding pass used as a bookmark. That first evening, we did almost nothing. Opened wine, sat on the terrace, watched the light change over the village rooftops. Someone was cooking something garlicky nearby. A cat wandered through the garden and judged us silently before leaving.

The next morning I woke without an alarm for the first time in eighteen months. The sun was already doing its thing, the pool was catching light, and I had absolutely no intention of being anywhere or doing anything. We walked to the village for bread and terrible coffee at a bar where the owner pretended not to understand my Spanish until I produced exact change, at which point he became positively chatty. Back at the finca, I read my stolen book by the pool, got in when too hot, got out when pruning, repeated until hungry.

That was the pattern for days. Gentle repetition. Morning bread, afternoon water, evening wine. We wandered to nearby Moscari once, found nothing in particular, were delighted by this. Another afternoon I attempted to identify birds from a guidebook and failed comprehensively. My partner did crosswords badly and with great satisfaction.

On the fourth day I realised I had not checked my email. Not deliberately, not as some digital detox statement. Simply had not thought to. This struck me as both marvellous and slightly worrying, as if I had discovered I could hold my breath far longer than expected and was not sure if this indicated health or its opposite. I mentioned this to my partner, who looked up from their book and said "good" with the finality of someone who had not checked theirs either and had no intention of starting.

The lemon tree dropped fruit occasionally, with a soft thud that became the afternoon's punctuation. I never did finish the detective novel. The solution seemed less important than the sitting. On our last morning, I stood at the wrong door again out of habit, key in hand, before remembering. The German chap waved from his window. I waved back, equally amused and embarrassed, and walked the twenty metres home.