I should have known the holiday had truly begun when I confidently reversed our laden Volvo into what I believed was the driveway of our Skovmose Strand cottage, only to discover I was actually mounting the neighbour's meticulously raked gravel path. The elderly gentleman emerging from his shed with a wheelbarrow wore an expression of such profoundly Danish patience that I immediately understood why hygge exists; you need it to survive tourists like me.

The journey from the ferry at Bojden had been straightforward enough, winding through Als's patchwork of yellow rapeseed fields and tidy villages with names I mangled cheerfully. My partner navigated while our two children conducted a vigorous debate about whether Denmark or our garden at home had better worms. This is the intellectual calibre of discourse we bring to international travel.

Our actual cottage, when I eventually found it thirty metres further along, announced itself with weathered wooden cladding and a deck that seemed to sag in greeting. The key was in the lockbox exactly as promised, though I spent an embarrassing five minutes jiggling it before realising I had the code upside down. The door swung open to that particular aroma of seaside holiday homes everywhere: slightly damp pine, old coffee, and the ghost of a thousand previous fry-ups.

The children bolted past me with the urgency of those who have spotted the bunk beds. I heard simultaneous declarations of "I'm top bunk" and "No fair" before I'd even set down our bags. The living area was precisely as the photographs had suggested, which is rarer than one might hope. A wood-burning stove sat in the corner like a promise of cosy evenings, and sliding doors revealed that deck I'd admired, now bathed in that flat, silvery light that seems particular to the Baltic coast.

I stepped outside, still wearing my driving shoes, and promptly discovered the dew-soaked grass. The cottage sits perhaps two hundred metres from Skovmose Strand proper, close enough that you can hear the water when the wind cooperates. That evening it did, carrying a faint rhythmic wash that immediately lowered my shoulders by several inches. I stood there, socks dampening, and felt that particular shift that happens when you finally let the journey go.

The kitchen proved adequately equipped for our ambitions, which rarely exceed pasta and grilled meats. My partner unpacked while I made a reconnaissance mission to the modest bathroom, where I noted the heated towel rail with the satisfaction of someone who has learned to appreciate small mercies. The children had already established a complex territory system in the bedroom they would share, complete with a stuffed animal border dispute that required diplomatic intervention.

By the time we walked down to the shore for a preliminary inspection, the light was turning golden and the water lay remarkably still. The beach here is not dramatic; it is modest and pebbly in patches, with shallow water that warms reluctantly. Our youngest immediately began collecting shells with the seriousness of an archaeologist, while the elder tested the temperature with a toe and retreated with theatrical shivering.

We returned to cook a simple supper, the children already establishing their positions for the week: the window seat for reading, the corner of the sofa for cards, the specific kitchen chair that wobbled satisfactorily. I opened the wine I had optimistically packed, poured a glass, and promptly knocked it with my elbow while reaching for the salt. It survived, barely, which felt like an appropriate metaphor for family holidays generally.

That first evening, we sat on the deck as the light faded and the midges emerged with their usual enthusiasm. Nobody had phone signal worth mentioning. The children argued about constellations they could not identify. I wore a borrowed hoodie against the chill that arrives promptly when the sun departs. It was not perfect, this beginning, but it was already ours, marked by small failures and smaller recoveries, by damp socks and near-missed wine glasses, by the particular peace of having absolutely nowhere else to be.