I have never been so pleased to see a roundabout in all my life. After two flights, a hire car that smelled faintly of air freshener and regret, and forty minutes of me confidently ignoring the satnav because "I know this bit of Spain," we finally spotted the sign for Torres de Cotillas. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The one that says we both know you got us lost near that industrial estate outside Murcia city, but I am too sun-drunk and hungry to start an argument.

The mishap, though. I must tell you about the mishap. We stopped at a supermarket on the way, as you do, loaded up with essentials: bread, cheese, olives, two bottles of wine that cost less than a London coffee, and a watermelon the size of a small child. I was feeling very smug and continental, swinging my carrier bags as we arrived at the property. Then I discovered I had packed my flip-flops, three novels, and seventeen phone chargers, but absolutely no trousers. Just shorts. One pair. For a fortnight. My partner, who had sensibly packed actual clothes, laughed for approximately six hours.

The property itself was one of those white-walled holiday homes with a terrace that catches the morning sun and a pool that glitters like a promise. We dumped our bags, opened the wine with the efficiency of people who had earned it, and sat on those plastic chairs that somehow feel perfect in Spain. The watermelon sat on the kitchen counter like a green elephant in the room. We would deal with it tomorrow. Or possibly never.

That first morning, I woke before the heat arrived. The light came through the shutters in stripes. I made terrible coffee in the little kitchen, spilling grounds everywhere because I refused to read the instructions, and took it outside in my one pair of shorts. The town was already stirring. Somewhere a dog barked with the enthusiasm of a creature who had never considered self-consciousness. A scooter puttered past. I sat there with my terrible coffee and felt something in my chest unclench. You forget, living in Britain, how mornings can feel like a gift rather than a commute.

We did very little that first day. This was the point, we reminded each other, as if we needed permission. We walked to the local shops, bought more bread than two people could reasonably eat, and pointed at things in windows with the cheerful incompetence of tourists who know they will return tomorrow. The bakery woman smiled at my attempt at Spanish. I think she was being kind. I said something that might have meant "good cemetery" rather than "good morning," but she gave me my pastries anyway.

Back at the house, we floated in the pool like vegetables in soup. I read the same paragraph of my novel seven times because the warmth made thinking feel optional. My partner dozed on a lounger, book face-down on her chest, occasionally murmuring something about needing more olives. We did not need more olives. We had so many olives. But the suggestion hung in the air, peaceful and unhurried, like everything else.

In the late afternoon, we ventured perhaps ten minutes on foot to a local bar. Cold beer, fried anchovies, the murmur of Spanish television in the corner. An old man watched football with the intensity of a general surveying a battlefield. We watched him watching football. The sun slid lower, turning everything golden and forgiving.

That evening, I cut the watermelon on the terrace. It was perfect, of course. Red and sweet and somehow humbling. I sat there in my single pair of shorts, juice running down my wrists, and thought about how I spend most of my life doing things, achieving things, worrying about things I have already done or might yet do. Here, the achievement was noticing the gecko on the wall. The doing was turning a page, slowly. The worry was whether we had enough wine for tomorrow, which we absolutely did, but it felt satisfying to worry about something so small and solvable.

We stayed up too late talking nonsense, mosquito coils burning in little spirals, the pool reflecting the lights from the kitchen. Somewhere in the darkness, that dog was still barking, still enthusiastic, still entirely present in its own moment.

I think about that dog sometimes, back in grey London. I think about the gecko, the terrible coffee, the cemetery I wished upon that kind baker. Mostly I think about doing very little, and how strangely difficult that is to learn, and how Spain, with its heat and its patience, keeps teaching me.