I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Kegnaes Strand was no exception. We had been driving for what felt like several geological eras, ferry included, when my partner turned to me somewhere near Sonderborg and asked whether I had remembered to pack the charging cables. I had not. I had, however, packed three different types of coffee maker and a bread bin. The bread bin was empty. This set the tone rather nicely.

The final stretch to Kegnaes took us through flat Danish farmland that seemed to stretch on forever, all pale gold fields and the occasional red-roofed farmhouse sitting low against the sky. My phone died somewhere around a field of very judgmental-looking cows. We found the cottage by instinct and desperation, crawling along a gravel track that made our little hire car sound like a percussion section.

Then we saw it. The place sat tucked among low trees with the sort of modest Scandinavian confidence that makes you feel immediately underdressed for your own holiday. White walls, dark wood, a garden that had clearly been loved by someone with more patience than either of us possesses. I stepped out of the car and immediately tripped over the single paving stone that had shifted by perhaps two centimetres. My partner laughed so hard she had to lean against the bonnet. I lay on the gravel for a moment, contemplating my life choices and the particular shade of Danish sky, which was doing that soft grey thing that somehow still manages to look cheerful.

The key was in the lockbox, which I opened with the code I had screenshot on my now-dead phone. Fortunately I had written it on my hand in biro like a teenager sneaking into a gig. The door swung open and the smell hit me immediately, that particular blend of wood polish and sea air that makes you want to exhale for the first time in months.

I will be honest with you. I had brought books. Four of them. This was optimistic given my usual reading rate, which slows dramatically when there is a garden to stare at. The cottage had a small terrace with wooden furniture that looked slightly too comfortable to be decent, and beyond it grass sloped gently down toward trees. I could hear something that might have been the sea or might have been wind in leaves, and I decided not to investigate too closely. Some mysteries deserve to remain unsolved.

We did not unpack with any urgency. This was partly exhaustion and partly the realisation that we had absolutely nowhere to be. The cottage had that rare quality of feeling immediately settled, as though it had been waiting for someone to sit down and stop trying so hard. I found a faded cushion on the sofa that fit the small of my back with suspicious precision. My partner opened the doors to let in the garden smell and promptly fell asleep in the armchair.

I made tea with the one working kettle I had brought, because of course I had brought two and one had the wrong plug. Then I took my cup outside and sat on the terrace steps with a book I did not open. A blackbird was doing something complicated in the grass. The light kept changing, softening, turning the whole garden into something that looked almost deliberately composed. I thought about reading. I thought about going for a walk to find the sea. I thought about charging my phone to take a photograph of the garden, then decided that the not-photograph would probably be better, more mine somehow.

The afternoon passed in this manner, slow and unmeasured. We ate bread and cheese for dinner because the shops were a drive away and neither of us could face the car again. The bread bin remained empty but we had not needed it after all. I fell asleep on the sofa with my book still closed on my chest, woke to find my partner had covered me with a blanket she had found somewhere, and stumbled to bed without brushing my teeth.

The next morning I woke to the sound of her making coffee with the aeropress, the one I had packed instead of cables. She brought it to me in bed and we lay there listening to the garden wake up, which it did with more enthusiasm than either of us managed. I thought about all the things we could do, the castles and harbours and pretty Danish towns that lay within reasonable distance. Then I thought about the terrace, and the cushion, and the blackbird who was probably still there with his complicated grass business.

We stayed in the garden all day. I am not sorry.