I have never been so relieved to see a cottage roof in all my life. After three hours of driving from Calais, complete with two children asking "are we nearly there" approximately every four minutes, we finally reached Rochehaut in Namur, Belgium. The sat nav had been doing its usual trick of sending us down lanes that felt more suited to tractors than a laden family estate, and my partner had that particular set to his jaw that meant either we arrived soon or someone was getting out to walk.

The mishap came at the final turn. I spotted what I thought was our lane, got rather too enthusiastic about finally being there, and managed to wedge the car between a stone wall and a very solid-looking farm gate. Not stuck, exactly. Just... creatively positioned. My partner got out to assess the situation with the kind of heavy sigh I have learned not to take personally over fifteen years of marriage. A local chap walking his dog paused to observe, offered a cheerful "bonjour," and carried on without so much as a raised eyebrow. I choose to believe this means Belgians are wonderfully unflappable rather than that my driving is a familiar local spectacle.

We extracted ourselves with minimal dignity lost and found the actual entrance fifty metres further on. The cottage sat among trees with a view down toward the Lesse valley, all timber and stone and very pleasingly rustic. The children had already abandoned us, racing to investigate what they immediately christened "the adventure garden," which turned out to be a modest sloping lawn with some excellent climbing trees and what I later discovered was a barbecue area I would definitely be setting on fire by accident.

First impressions of the place itself: exactly the right sort of simple. Wooden beams you might bump your head on if you were over six foot, which my partner is and promptly did. A kitchen that looked like it had actually been cooked in rather than styled for a magazine. The sort of comfortable, slightly worn furniture that makes you feel you can actually sit on it without worrying. I have stayed in places so pristine you feel you should be wearing white gloves to make a cup of tea. This was not one of them, thank goodness.

The children reappeared demanding exploration, so we took a wander down toward the village proper. Rochehaut is not large, which suits me perfectly. A few houses, the sense of being properly in the Ardennes without the drama of actual wilderness. We found a small shop for essentials, by which I mean bread, cheese, and beer, the holy trinity of any self-respecting Belgian break. My attempt to order in my school French was met with patient kindness and a gentle switch to English that saved us all considerable suffering.

Back at the cottage, I found myself properly unwinding for the first time in months. There is something about these places, the slight chaos of family life contained within wooden walls, the garden becoming headquarters for some elaborate game involving sticks and rules only children understand. My partner and I sat on the terrace with those beers, watching the light change over the valley, still laughing about the gate incident but softer now, the kind of laughter that comes with being finally still.

I had worried this would be one of those holidays where you travel somewhere beautiful and spend the whole time managing everyone else's experience. Instead, within hours, it had become something simpler. A cottage, some trees, a slightly dented car, and the particular pleasure of nowhere much to be.