I should have known the holiday had truly begun when I put the sat nav in Danish by accident and spent twenty minutes following directions to what I thought was our cottage but turned out to be a tractor shed outside Gedser. My wife sat there with that particular expression she saves for my finest moments, while the kids asked from the back whether we were going to live in a barn now. I played it off as a scenic detour. They were not convinced.

The actual journey down through Falster had been lovely enough, mind you. Rolling fields, those big Danish skies, the odd windmill looking terribly pleased with itself. We crossed onto the island and the world seemed to flatten out and breathe a bit. Proper holiday pace. Though I did manage to miss the turning for Marielyst twice, which my wife noted with the kind of dry observation that requires no actual words.

When we finally found the right road, bumping along past pine trees and little lanes of similar wooden cottages, I felt that lovely shift you get when the everyday finally falls away. The cottage sat there looking genuinely welcoming, all natural wood and proper Danish holiday-home charm, with a terrace that practically begged for a cup of tea and some doing-nothing. The children had already abandoned the car and were investigating a beetle on the path with the intensity of natural historians.

The key collection had its own small comedy, of course. I'd written the code on my phone, which promptly died because I'd been using it as a torch to look for my charger in the darkened car. There we stood, four of us, performing that modern ritual of hoping the battery might magically revive if you stare at it hard enough. My wife produced a scrap of paper from her bag with the code written down three days ago, which she revealed with the quiet triumph of someone who has been married to me long enough to anticipate these situations.

Stepping inside, the cottage had that particular smell of pine and holiday and slightly too much cleaning product, which I find weirdly comforting. The open-plan living area was bright and uncomplicated, with those big windows looking out towards greenery that promised proper outdoor mucking about. The kids disappeared upstairs to claim beds with the territorial urgency of colonial powers dividing territory. There was some brief negotiation, a door slam, then suspicious silence that every parent recognises as either harmony or plotting.

I made the mistake of announcing I'd pop to the local shop for supplies, full of confidence from my earlier navigational triumphs. Twenty minutes later I was circling what I thought was the same roundabout for the third time, wondering if Falster had somehow rearranged itself to teach me humility. The shop, when found, was small and practical and staffed by a woman who spoke better English than I do and was far too polite to mention my slightly wild-eyed appearance.

Back at the cottage, my wife had already unpacked with military efficiency and opened wine. The children had discovered the terrace and were engaged in what they called "exploring" and what looked to me like moving pebbles from one spot to another with great purpose. I unloaded my shopping with the sheepishness of a man who'd bought three types of Danish biscuit but forgotten milk.

As evening came on, we sat out with that wine and some rather excellent cheese I'd impulse-purchased, watching the light go soft through the pines. The kids were filthy from whatever they'd been doing in the garden, full of stories about a frog they'd nearly seen. My wife and I exchanged one of those looks that says we are tired and this is simple and sometimes simple is exactly enough.

I thought about my sat nav Danish, my barn detour, my roundabout confusion. The small absurdities of trying to get somewhere and making a meal of it. But we'd arrived, hadn't we? Eventually. And there was something rather perfect about sitting there with my ridiculous family in our wooden cottage, slightly lost in the best possible way, with a whole week of not very much at all stretching ahead of us.