I have never been so relieved to see a chimney in all my life. There it was, poking up from behind a cluster of pine trees, smoke curling out in that reassuring way that says "someone's in, and they've probably got the kettle on." Except the someone was me, or would be for the next week, and the kettle was mine to fumble with. This was Teglkaas, my little brick hideaway on Bornholm, and I had arrived at last after what can only be described as a journey of modest disasters.

The ferry from Ystad had been pleasant enough. I had stood on deck like a proper tourist, letting the Baltic wind rearrange my hair into something resembling a seabird's nest, feeling rather pleased with myself for booking a proper Danish island escape. The trouble began when I actually reached Rønne. In my wisdom, I had decided to walk to the bus stop with my rucksack, my wheeled case, and a carrier bag containing a squashed sandwich from the ferry cafeteria. The wheel caught in a cobble. The sandwich launched itself into the harbour breeze. I performed what I can only describe as an involuntary curtsey, saved from complete humiliation by a passing cyclist who didn't even break pace, merely raised an eyebrow as if this were a daily spectacle.

Bus 7 to Sandvig deposited me at what I was certain was the wrong stop. It wasn't. I simply couldn't believe that my accommodation was up yet another hill, along a gravel track, past a field of sheep who watched my approach with the blank hostility of a jury. By the time I spotted that chimney, my wheeled case had developed a distinct limp and I had begun to talk to myself, which I told myself was perfectly normal under the circumstances.

Teglkaas revealed itself slowly, as these places do. A low brick building, weathered to that particular Scandinavian russet that makes everything look like it belongs in a children's story. The key was where promised, in a little box with a code I had written on my phone, my phone I had written in my notebook, and my notebook I had eventually found in the sandwich bag. The door opened with a satisfying heft, and I stepped into warmth and the smell of wood polish and something else, something I couldn't place until later: pine, salt, and the faint memory of someone else's holiday.

I dumped my luggage and did what any sensible person does in a new place. I opened every cupboard. The kitchen was compact, reassuringly well-equipped, with a proper coffee maker that I immediately forgave for being complicated. The sitting room had a wood-burning stove that I eyed with the suspicion of a man who has never successfully lit one without filling a room with smoke. There were books in Danish and German, a few in English, including a very battered Agatha Christie that I decided was an excellent omen.

The bedroom looked out towards the coast, though "coast" was more a suggestion than a visible reality at that hour. Darkness comes early in November, and I had arrived at that liminal time when the afternoon has given up but evening hasn't quite committed. I could hear the sea though, or thought I could, that particular rhythm that might be waves or might be wind in the pines or might be my own tiredness playing tricks.

I made coffee with more optimism than skill, spilling grounds on the counter in a pattern I told myself was abstract art. The sofa swallowed me with that particular generosity of holiday furniture. Through the window, the last light showed me a glimpse of what tomorrow might hold: a path leading towards the cliffs, the promise of walking, of weather, of the particular adventure that comes from being slightly underprepared in a foreign landscape.

I thought about my sandwich, mourned briefly, then found crackers in a tin that might have been left by a previous guest or might have been part of the rental. I ate them with cheese I had bought in Rønne, cheese that tasted of somewhere else, of cows I had never met, of grass that grew in a different light. It was perfect in its ordinariness.

That first night, I slept the sleep of the righteously exhausted, the slightly embarrassed, and the quietly hopeful. Teglkaas had me, mishaps and all, and I suspected we were going to get along just fine.