I have never been so relieved to see a wooden bench in my entire life. Three hours of driving from Klagenfurt Airport, two of them spent winding through the Molltal valley with a car full of overexcited children and a wife who had developed that particular silent expression that meant someone would be sleeping on the sofa later, and there it was. The bench. Our bench, apparently, though at that moment it looked like the very throne of salvation itself. I had forgotten to pack the booking confirmation, you see, and the mobile signal had vanished somewhere around Obervellach along with my dignity and any claim to being the organised dad I pretend to be.

The property sat nestled among larch trees with that satisfying creak of authentic Austrian timber construction, all dark beams and flower boxes that looked almost aggressively picturesque. My youngest immediately attempted to climb the woodpile while my eldest announced she was "literally dying" of hunger, a medical emergency that apparently required instant attention despite the sandwich she had inhaled at Spittal. My wife, meanwhile, had located the key safe and was performing that familiar holiday ritual of muttering numbers while I made myself useful by photographing a butterfly.

Inside, the smell hit first. That gorgeous, unmistakable scent of seasoned wood and something faintly herby that no amount of scented candle fakery could ever replicate. The living area opened up with those classic high ceilings and a wood-burning stove that promised evenings of questionable fire-lighting competence from yours truly. I immediately claimed the armchair by the window, naturally, before anyone else could establish territorial rights. The view through that glass was ridiculous. Mountains doing their dramatic Alpine thing, a patchwork of meadow and forest that made our back garden in Swindon feel like a particularly disappointing car park.

The kitchen proved immediately chaotic. I had grand plans of cooking proper meals, of being that dad who produces hearty stews and maybe even attempts Kaiserschmarrn from a YouTube tutorial. Reality arrived in the form of discovering I had packed three bottles of sun cream and no salt. The nearest shop was a drive away in Obervellach, which became our first proper expedition and where I bought approximately seventeen things we did not need while forgetting the actual salt again. We ate pasta with butter and an alarming quantity of pepper that first night, huddled around the table while the children competed to tell the most exaggerated story about their day.

What struck me most, lying in bed that first night with the unfamiliar silence of actual darkness pressing against the windows, was how quickly the panic of modern life seemed to loosen its grip. No emails pinging, no traffic humming, just the occasional creak of timber settling and the distant sound of the river Moll that I would discover properly the next morning. I had spent months imagining this break as a series of activities and achievements, ticking off experiences like some deranged project manager. Instead, I found myself already content with the prospect of doing very little indeed, of watching my children discover that entertainment could come from a stream and a stick rather than a screen, of accepting that my fire-lighting would remain mediocre and that this was perfectly acceptable.

The mishap with the booking confirmation became our running joke, of course. Every time we returned to the property, someone would ask if I had remembered why we were there, and I would pat my pocket theatrically. By day three, the children were inventing increasingly elaborate scenarios about how we had actually broken into someone else's holiday home. The bench outside became our evening headquarters, the place where we dissected the day's small adventures and I finally learned to light that stove without filling the room with smoke. Some holidays you remember for what you did. This one, I suspect, I will remember for how it felt to finally stop trying so hard.