The ferry from Bittenfelt to Als was meant to be the easy bit of the journey. I had done the hard part: navigated the motorways, survived the endless roadworks near Hamburg, and even remembered to switch my headlights on when we crossed into Denmark. What I had not accounted for was my own spectacular ability to misplace absolutely everything. I realised somewhere past Sonderburg that my carefully planned folder of booking confirmations, directions, and the all-important key collection code was sitting on the kitchen table in Croydon. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The "I love you but honestly" look that couples develop somewhere around year three.

We found a cafe with patchy WiFi and managed to retrieve the code from a frantic email to my mother, who was now photographing my kitchen table and sending increasingly blurry JPEGs. By the time we pulled up to the Købingsmark, I was ready to eat my own arm.

The cottage sat tucked among trees with that particular Scandinavian stillness that makes you want to whisper. A red wooden place with white trim, utterly unpretentious, the sort of building that knows exactly what it is. I fumbled with the key box while my partner unloaded the car, already investigating the outdoor grill with the focused attention of someone who had eaten nothing but service station sandwiches for eight hours.

The kitchen was where I stood for a good five minutes, just taking it in. Proper gas hob. Decent knives, which is rarer in holiday lets than you might think. A fridge that actually looked capable of keeping things cold. I had grand plans already forming, the sort of ambitious menu ideas that strike when you are slightly delirious from travel and determined to be the sort of person who cooks properly on holiday.

We walked to Sonderburg that first evening, too tired to attempt anything beyond finding food someone else had prepared. Found a harbour-side place doing open sandwiches, the smorrebrod piled with pickled herring and egg in that architectural Danish way. I ordered a pint of local ale and felt the journey finally start to leave my shoulders. My partner had the fried plaice, because when you are on an island you eat what swims around it, and we sat watching the boats with the particular contentment of people who have survived their own incompetence.

The next morning I attacked the local food scene with the energy of the newly converted. There is a small market in Sonderburg on certain days, and I had timed our arrival badly, catching only the stragglers packing up. Still managed some excellent local pork sausages, a dense rye bread that could genuinely serve as a building material, and cheese from a woman who spoke no English but communicated perfectly through enthusiastic pointing and samples. I ate far too much cheese before eleven in the morning and regret nothing.

Back at the Købingsmark, I attempted my first proper meal. The grill was involved. The local sausages, some potatoes wrapped in foil with dill I had found growing wild at the edge of the property, and a salad that went slightly wrong when I misjudged the sharpness of the local vinegar. We ate outside as the light did that long Scandinavian fade, drinking wine and arguing about whether the potatoes were properly cooked. They were not, quite, but we ate them anyway because I had declared them done and pride was at stake.

The pub situation on Als deserves honest discussion. There are not many, not in the British sense of a pub on every corner. What exists are more restrained affairs, often attached to restaurants or hotels, places where you drink responsibly and probably do not attempt karaoke. We found one in Nordborg that felt properly lived-in, all dark wood and regulars who looked up with mild curiosity before returning to their conversations. I tried akvavit because when in Rome, and immediately understood why the Danes treat it with respect rather than enthusiasm. My partner had another ale and laughed at my expression.

Cooking became the rhythm of the days. I attempted fish I had bought from a harbour-side seller, pan-frying it simply with butter and lemon because anything more would have been an insult to its freshness. I made a hash of a traditional Danish potato dish, adding too much cream and creating something closer to soup, which we ate with spoons and pretended was intentional. There were breakfasts of that dense rye bread with cheese and cucumber, the simple combinations that Scandinavian cuisine does so well when you stop trying to complicate them.

The market on our final proper day yielded strawberries that actually tasted of something, more of that excellent pork, and a jar of honey from a man who kept bees somewhere on the island. I bought it partly for the taste, partly because he was so clearly proud of it, and partly because I had become the sort of person who buys local honey on holiday. This realisation struck me as I walked back to the car, and I had one of those small moments of wondering who I was becoming. The person who plans meals before activities, who gets genuinely excited about a good kitchen knife, who has opinions on rye bread density. My mother, basically. I was becoming my mother, and the strangest part was not minding at all.

Our final evening, I cooked properly. Nothing ambitious, just good ingredients treated simply. Grilled pork, those strawberries with a little sugar and cream, potatoes that I finally got right through sheer stubbornness and a timer. We ate at the wooden table outside, the air still and warm in that way Danish summer evenings have, and talked about nothing in particular. The mishap with the booking folder felt like weeks ago rather than days, already transformed into one of those stories we would tell.

I have been on holidays where I remember the sights, the museums, the impressive views. This one I remember through meals: the harbour-side smorrebrod, the cheese eaten too early in the morning, the undercooked potatoes eaten from pride, the final proper dinner that tasted of having slowed down enough to pay attention. The Købingsmark had given us the kitchen to do it in, and Als had given us the ingredients, and my own incompetence had given us the story to tell afterwards. Some holidays you need that combination, I think. The place, the food, and the mild disaster that makes the whole thing stick in memory.