I have never been so relieved to see a wooden shed in all my life. After three hours on the ferry from Ystad, a drive across Bornholm that felt longer than it was thanks to my youngest asking "are we there yet" every forty seconds, and a final wrong turn that took us past what I am fairly certain was the same field of rye three times, we finally spotted the little sign for Østre Sømark. I practically wept.

The mishap came immediately. I had been banging on about the "key safe" for days, treating it like some kind of advanced Scandinavian technology that would make me look competent in front of my wife. "It's all very modern," I'd said, waving the email about. "Code, click, sorted." What I had not anticipated was my own ability to misread the number four as a nine, then spend a solid eight minutes jabbing an increasingly furious finger at a metal box that steadfastly refused to open. My daughter had wandered off to inspect a beetle. My son had started doing keepy-uppy with a pine cone. My wife was giving me that look, the one that says "I married this man voluntarily." I tried the code backwards, upside down, and once, in desperation, with what I can only describe as interpretive dance. Then I put my glasses on. Four. Not nine. The safe clicked open like it was laughing at me.

The cottage itself was one of those proper Danish summer places, all timber and terracotta tiles, with a terrace that looked out towards the coast through a tangle of birch and pine. Inside smelled of wood polish and something else I could not place, something that made me think of my grandmother's airing cupboard but in a good way. The living room had that lived-in, unpretentious feel you want from a family holiday let, not the sterile "don't touch anything" vibe of some places we have endured. My son immediately claimed the sofa nearest the wood-burning stove, despite it being July and roughly twenty degrees outside. My daughter discovered the bunk beds and emitted a noise only dogs could hear.

I will be honest, I had worried about the self-catering aspect. I am not what you would call a natural cook, and the thought of producing family meals in an unfamiliar kitchen usually fills me with a low-grade dread. But there was something about this one, compact and well-organised with its little window overlooking the garden, that made me think I might actually manage a fried egg without setting off a smoke alarm. We shall see. The fridge was already stocked with the basics we had ordered ahead, which felt like a small miracle after the key safe debacle.

The garden was the real revelation. Not manicured, not trying to be anything other than what it was, a patch of Bornholm grass sloping gently down towards the trees, with a couple of weathered wooden chairs that looked like they had been there since the seventies. My wife sat in one with a cup of tea she had somehow produced from nowhere, and I watched her shoulders actually drop, actually relax, for the first time in months. The children had vanished into some kind of shrub-based game involving shouted rules I did not understand. I could hear the distant sea, or thought I could, and the wind moving through the leaves made a sound like someone saying "shhh."

I keep catching myself planning, mentally listing beaches and bike rides and whatever that round church is called, the one everyone mentions. But sitting there on that terrace, still slightly sweaty from my key safe humiliation, I found myself wondering if we might just stay put for a bit. Do nothing much. Let the children get filthy in the garden. Eat questionable barbecued sausages. Fall asleep reading something undemanding. There is a particular kind of peace in places like this, I am starting to realise, that has nothing to do with seeing the sights and everything to do with finally stopping.

Tomorrow we might walk down to that shingle beach the information folder mentions, the one ten minutes away through the trees. Or we might not. The children are already lobbying for a second day of "garden Olympics," which seems to involve running in circles and falling over deliberately. I am considering joining in. My wife says she will film it for blackmail purposes. I think she is only half joking.

The sun is lower now, doing that long golden thing it does at this latitude, and someone has started a barbecue somewhere nearby, that distinctive charcoal smell drifting through the garden. My daughter has fallen asleep on the sofa with her shoes still on. My son is attempting to teach himself Danish from a takeaway menu he found in a drawer. I should probably cook something, or at least make a convincing attempt. But for now I am just sitting here, slightly sunburned already because I forgot to pack proper suncream, listening to the quiet, feeling something in my chest unclench that I had not even realised was tight.

The key safe still haunts me slightly, if I am honest. I keep checking my pocket to make sure I have actually got the key, not left it in the box like the overconfident fool I clearly am. But I am choosing to see it as a lesson in humility, or perhaps just evidence that I should get my eyes tested. Either way, we are here. We made it. And I have a strong suspicion that this slightly chaotic, slightly shed-like little corner of Bornholm is going to be exactly what we needed, four that looks like a nine and all.