I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Fjellerup in East Jutland proved me absolutely right. It was late October when we set off from Aarhus, the kind of grey Saturday morning where the Danish autumn seems to press against the car windows like a damp wool blanket. My partner had entrusted me with navigation duties, which was our first collective mistake. Within twenty minutes I had directed us down what I can only describe as a farm track masquerading as a legitimate road, where we encountered a tractor whose driver looked at us with the weary resignation of someone who has seen too many lost Britons in hatchbacks.

The mishap itself was almost too predictable to be funny, except that it happened to me. I had packed with what I thought was ruthless efficiency, yet upon arrival at our little holiday home I discovered I had brought my wellies, three novels, and seventeen packets of instant porridge, but somehow managed to leave my actual shoes on the kitchen table back in England. There they sat, presumably, while I stood in borrowed supermarket slip-ons that squeaked with every step on the wooden floors. The floors, I should mention, were glorious, warm with underfloor heating that made me immediately forgive the house its slightly eccentric 1970s exterior. Autumn in East Jutland demands such comforts, and this place understood that perfectly.

The seasonal influence was impossible to ignore and genuinely shaped everything. The garden, which I imagine bursts with activity in July, had that particular late-year melancholy, the trampoline looking slightly forlorn with wet leaves pooled in its centre. Yet there was something deeply satisfying about this. We arrived as the light was already fading, around half past four, and the darkness felt less like an imposition than an invitation. The house seemed to gather itself around us, the windows steaming slightly from the kitchen where we put the kettle on immediately, because what else does one do when confronted with Danish October?

Fjellerup itself, we discovered the next morning, wears autumn rather well. The beach, just a short walk away, had that magnificent Scandinavian emptiness that makes you feel slightly heroic for simply being there. The Baltic was the colour of old pewter, and the wind carried that particular cold freshness that somehow smells of childhood regardless of where you actually grew up. We walked with our collars up, hands deep in pockets, watching the last of the summer houses being closed up for winter, their owners performing the ritualistic tasks of draining pipes and securing shutters against the coming months.

The local area in late autumn operates at a different frequency entirely. The small supermarket in nearby Glesborg had its Halloween display out, slightly half-hearted by British standards but charming for its very Danish restraint. We bought bread that was still warm, and cheese, and returned to eat by candlelight because the darkness arrived so early and because it felt correct. The house's terrace, which would be glorious in June, became instead a place for brief appearances wrapped in blankets, clutching coffee, before retreating indoors.

What struck me most was how the season forced a particular kind of holiday upon us. There could be no lazy lounging, no spontaneous swimming, no late evenings outdoors. Instead we read those novels I had so optimistically packed. We cooked slowly, properly, because the weather offered few alternatives. We talked more than we had in months, simply because the rhythm of the days permitted it. The autumn stripped away the possibility of doing everything, and in doing so gave us the gift of doing almost nothing, together.

I found myself reflecting on this on our final morning, watching the sunrise through the coastal mist from that warm kitchen, squeaky shoes and all. There is something to be said for arriving at the wrong time, for being slightly unprepared, for letting the season dictate rather than resist it. My shoes remained in England throughout, and I cannot honestly say I missed them.