I have never been so relieved to see a holiday cottage as I was when St. Sjørup finally appeared at the end of a dirt track that my sat-nav swore was a proper road. The journey from Aarhus had been straightforward enough until Djursland decided to test me. Somewhere near Grenaa, I took what I thought was a scenic shortcut and ended up sharing a single-lane lane with a tractor whose driver seemed to find my panic deeply amusing. He waved cheerfully as I reversed fifty metres into a field entrance, my hire car making a noise like a distressed vacuum cleaner.

The real mishap, though, was the key safe. The instructions said "left of the blue door." There was no blue door. There was a green door, a grey door, and what I initially thought was a blue door but turned out to be a very optimistic tarpaulin covering a barbecue. I tried the code on every combination lock I could find, including one that I later realised belonged to the neighbour's shed. The neighbour, a wiry chap in wellies, watched me from his window for a solid ten minutes before coming out to explain, in excellent English, that I was at number seven and needed number twelve. I had walked straight past it because the house number was hidden behind a climbing rose that had clearly been planning this ambush for years.

By the time I actually opened the door to St. Sjørup, I was sweating through my jumper, my phone was on four percent, and I had developed an irrational grudge against the entire concept of key safes. Then I stepped inside and just stood there like an idiot, still holding my suitcase in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other.

The place smelled of pine and something else, something clean and properly aired rather than that synthetic holiday-let fragrance. The living room had these enormous windows looking out towards the Kattegat, and the late afternoon light was doing that golden thing it does in Denmark around teatime, turning everything slightly magical. I could see the water glinting through the trees, and somewhere in the distance a dog barked in that lazy way that suggests nobody is in any particular hurry.

I dumped my bags and did what every sensible person does in a new holiday cottage: opened every cupboard and drawer within reach. The kitchen was properly equipped, not the usual random assortment of blunt knives and mismatched plates. Someone had actually thought about it. There was even a proper coffee pot, the stovetop kind, which made me feel briefly sophisticated until I remembered I had no idea how to use one.

The bedrooms were upstairs, steep wooden stairs that creaked satisfyingly underfoot. I chose the one with the view, obviously, and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, still slightly breathless from the key safe ordeal. Through the window I could see the garden sloping down towards what I assumed was the path to the beach, though at that point I was too tired to investigate. A pair of seagulls wheeled past, shouting at each other about whatever it is seagulls shout about.

I made myself a cup of tea using a kettle I found after only two wrong cupboards, and stood at the kitchen window watching the light change. The chaos of arrival was already softening into something else, something that felt like the proper beginning of a holiday rather than just another thing to get through. I thought about how I always do this to myself, turn simple journeys into minor dramas through some combination of overconfidence and poor planning, and how somehow it never seems to matter once I am actually in the right place.

The neighbour's dog had started barking again, closer now, and I could smell someone's wood smoke drifting through the garden. I finished my tea and decided that tomorrow I would find the actual path to the beach, and possibly apologise to the neighbour for the shed incident. For now, though, I was quite happy to stay exactly where I was, surrounded by pine and golden light and the particular peacefulness of having finally, despite everything, arrived.