I have never been so relieved to see a wooden shed with a red roof in all my life. After six hours of driving from Esbjerg, a wrong turn past Thisted that added forty minutes, and one spectacular argument about whether I had packed the charging cables (I had not), we finally rolled up to Helligso Strand. The sat nav had given up three miles back, muttering something about recalculating before going ominously silent. My partner, Sarah, was giving me that look. The children were giving me another look entirely. And our youngest, Molly, had just announced she needed a wee with the urgent gravity only a five-year-old can muster.

The mishap, though. I must tell you about the mishap.

In my eagerness to escape the car and declare myself a holiday hero, I grabbed what I thought was the cottage key from the lockbox. Turns out I had snatched the tiny emergency torch instead. Cue me standing on the doorstep in the drizzle, pressing this plastic torch against the door handle with increasing desperation, while Sarah watched from the car with her forehead against the window. The actual key was still in the box, obviously. I found it eventually, after what felt like a small eternity of muttered Danish I do not speak and some creative pointing at seagulls. The children found this hilarious. Sarah found it less hilarious when Molly, taking her cue from my general incompetence, promptly dropped her stuffed rabbit into a puddle.

But then we stepped inside, and something shifted.

The cottage at Helligso Strand is not trying to impress anyone, and that is precisely its charm. Low ceilings, slightly wonky floorboards that creak in satisfying places, and that particular smell of old wood and salt air that makes you exhale properly for the first time in months. The living room looks straight out towards Limfjorden through windows that have clearly weathered a few storms. I stood there with my plastic torch still clutched in my hand like a totem, watching the grey water merge with the grey sky, and felt the argument about charging cables dissolve into something faintly ridiculous.

Sarah unpacked while I made tea in the compact kitchen, banging my head on a beam within thirty seconds. Standard procedure. The children discovered the bunk beds in the second bedroom and immediately began negotiations about who slept top that would rival any UN summit. I took my tea outside to the small terrace, wrapped in a blanket I found on a hook, and watched a heron stand motionless in the shallows. The drizzle had softened to something more like mist. Somewhere across the fjord, a dog barked once, then stopped.

That first evening, we walked the stony beach as the light faded, collecting smooth grey stones the children insisted were precious. Molly forgot about her damp rabbit. Our eldest, Tom, actually put his phone in his pocket without being asked. We saw no one else, just the odd fishing boat returning and the heron still standing there, patient as stone. Back at the cottage, Sarah produced a simple dinner from the supplies we had remembered, and we ate at the small table with our knees touching, the children squabbling happily about nothing in particular.

I kept that plastic torch on the windowsill all week. A reminder, I suppose, that the best holidays begin with a bit of chaos and the willingness to laugh at yourself. Helligso Strand gave us that from the very first moment, and we were grateful.