I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got my left and right confused somewhere past Aalborg. There I was, proudly following Google Maps with the confidence of a man who once navigated the Lake District without crying, when I realised I'd been driving in a complete circle round the same barley field for twenty minutes. The same tractor driver waved at me three times. By the third pass, his expression had shifted from friendly to genuinely concerned. I gave him a thumbs up that I absolutely did not feel.

Eventually I found Hostrup Strand, and honestly, the relief of seeing actual water after my agricultural detour was immense. The Limfjorden stretched out all silvery and calm, and I stood there for a moment just breathing in that particular smell of Danish coast - something between salt and pine and whatever magic they put in their pastries.

The key collection was from a neighbour, which is where I met Bent. Bent must be seventy, wears overalls regardless of weather, and within ninety seconds of meeting me had established that I was single, employed in "computers," and deeply incompetent at directions. He handed over the key with the solemnity of a man bestowing a sacred relic, then spent another ten minutes explaining the boiler system with such intensity you'd think he was describing nuclear fusion. "You turn this one," he said, gripping a valve like it owed him money, "and then you wait. Not immediately. You wait." I nodded with the gravity this clearly deserved.

The cottage itself was one of those charming Scandinavian affairs where everything is slightly too small for a grown man with a fondness for Danish bacon. I cracked my head on a beam within four minutes of arrival, which I consider a personal best. The previous record was five minutes in a York BandB, so Denmark was already winning.

That evening, determined to make amends with the local community after my tractor-related shame, I walked to the nearest village shop. This is where I encountered Lene, who runs the place with the efficiency of a military operation and the warmth of a favourite aunt. She took one look at my basket - bread, cheese, three types of herring I couldn't identify, and a chocolate bar for emotional support - and asked if I was the Englishman who'd been driving in circles. News travels fast when there's barley involved.

I admitted my guilt. She laughed, properly laughed, the kind that makes other customers turn round smiling. Then she swapped one of my mystery herrings for something she said was "actually edible," refused the price difference, and told me about the swimming spot where the local teenagers dare each other to jump from a particular rock. "Bent did it until he was fifty-five," she said, with the air of someone sharing state secrets. "Now he just watches and judges."

I spent my first sunset sitting on the cottage's little terrace, nursing a beer and a developing bruise from that beam, watching the fjorden turn all sorts of improbable colours. A heron went past with the deliberate slowness of something with absolutely nowhere to be. Somewhere, presumably, Bent was still disappointed in my sense of direction.

There's something about that first evening in a new place, isn't there? When you're still slightly disoriented, still finding where the good mugs are kept, still working out whether the shower has two temperatures or twenty. I thought about the tractor driver, about Lene's herring intervention, about Bent's boiler sermon. I'd got lost, made a fool of myself, and somehow already collected more genuine human moments than I managed in six months back home.

The heron landed on a post and looked at me. I raised my beer to it, feeling slightly ridiculous, feeling absolutely fine about it. Tomorrow I'd find that swimming rock, maybe. Or I'd get lost again and meet someone else who'd find it funny. Either way, I suspected, this was going to be a good week.