I should have known the holiday was going to be memorable when I put the postcode into my sat nav and it directed me to a field full of very unimpressed cows. Three U-turns, one slightly tense conversation with a local cyclist, and a growing suspicion that technology had failed me later, I finally spotted the sign for Hasmark Strand peeking through the pine trees. My partner sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression of someone who is trying very hard not to say "I told you so" about my refusal to download offline maps.

The drive from the ferry at Odense had been pleasant enough, winding through the patchwork fields and half-timbered villages that make Funen feel like someone took all the best bits of rural England and added better pastries. But by the time I crunched onto the gravel driveway of our holiday home, I had developed a throbbing stress headache and an urgent need for the toilet that no amount of Danish politeness could suppress.

I leapt from the car, fumbled with the key lockbox, and promptly dropped the code sheet into a puddle. Of course I did. There I was, crouching in wet gravel, trying to decipher smudged numbers while my partner unloaded cases with the grim efficiency of someone who has accepted their fate. The lockbox finally clicked open and I performed what I can only describe as a celebratory dance that a passing neighbour definitely witnessed through their window. We have not spoken since, though I suspect we will not need to.

Stepping inside, the chaos of the journey fell away almost immediately. The place had that particular smell of pine and sea air that makes you forgive everything. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed a view of the Kattegat that stopped me mid-stride, still clutching my soggy code sheet. The water stretched out grey and silver under a typically overcast Danish sky, and somewhere in the distance a ferry hooted its way toward somewhere else entirely.

I had grand plans for our first evening. We would stroll to the local beach, perhaps take atmospheric photographs, definitely locate a respectable restaurant for dinner. Instead, I spent twenty minutes wrestling with the underfloor heating controls, which appeared to operate in a logic entirely divorced from human understanding. The manual was in Danish, German, and something I suspect was Swedish. My partner retreated to the sofa with a cup of tea and a book, occasionally making helpful comments about my "determined face" that I chose to interpret as support.

By the time I admitted defeat and simply opened a window to regulate the temperature, dusk had settled over Hasmark Strand. We abandoned our dinner plans and made do with bread and cheese from a supermarket in Bogense, eaten at the kitchen table with our shoes still on, too exhausted to properly unpack. The heating hummed mysteriously beneath our feet, occasionally too warm, occasionally too cold, never quite right.

Sitting there with crumbs on my jumper and my hair still windblown from the journey, I caught sight of my reflection in the darkened window. I looked absolutely shattered. But I also looked, I realised, rather content. The mishaps had already become funny, or nearly funny, the kind of stories you tell later with exaggerated gestures. The cows, the puddle, the heating controls, the neighbour who now probably thinks all British tourists perform gravel dances. This was the holiday already becoming itself, messy and real and nothing like the polished version I had imagined.

I finished my cheese, closed the stubborn window, and decided the heating could wait until morning. Some battles are not worth fighting, especially not on your first night in Denmark when the sea is murmuring outside and tomorrow promises proper exploration of this funny, lovely stretch of Funen coast.