I have never been a natural at packing the car for a holiday. There is always a moment, usually somewhere around the M25, where I realise the cool box is wedged beneath a suitcase and the bread has already started to resemble a flatbread experiment gone wrong. This particular morning, though, I outdid myself. We were halfway to Dover when my daughter asked where her shoes were. Not one pair. Both. In their entirety. Left in the hallway at home next to the wellies she had apparently decided were surplus to requirements. There is a special kind of parental silence that follows this sort of revelation. My wife looked at me with the expression she usually reserves for when I claim I have fixed the boiler. We pressed on, reasoning that Denmark probably sold shoes. Probably.

The crossing was blessedly uneventful, and the drive up through Germany and into Denmark felt like the holiday proper beginning. Flat fields, big skies, and that particular Scandinavian light that makes everything look slightly more wholesome than it deserves to. By the time we reached Lolland, we were all slightly feral from travel but in good spirits. The island sits at the bottom of Denmark proper, connected by bridges, and has the feel of somewhere that has never really bothered with hustle. It is farming country, marshland, coastline, and not much else. Exactly what we wanted.

Kramnitze itself is a tiny coastal settlement on the southeastern edge of Lolland, and our cottage was one of a small cluster near the shore. I will be honest: my first impression was not profound. I was still processing the shoe situation, and the gravel crunch beneath our tyres sounded louder than it should have. The cottage sat there, yellow-painted, slightly weather-beaten, with a garden that had clearly given up on formal gardening some years ago and was now just doing its own thing. Grass, wildflowers, a few determined shrubs. It looked like a place that had seen families come and go, leaving behind nothing worse than sand in the door frames and the occasional forgotten bucket.

Then we stepped inside, and something shifted. It smelled of pine and salt and slightly damp wool, which I realise sounds questionable but was actually perfect. The living area was simple, wooden-floored, with windows that let in enormous rectangles of light. My son immediately claimed the little loft bedroom, which involved a ladder he was not technically tall enough to climb safely. My daughter, still in her socks, discovered the garden and the fact that it contained a swing. She swung for twenty minutes without shoes, feet dragging through the long grass, and I have rarely seen her happier.

The kitchen was compact in that way that forces you to actually talk to each other while cooking. We made tea with the mismatched mugs we found in the cupboard, standing at the window watching the light change over the fields. Someone, probably decades ago, had painted the window frames blue. They were peeling now, but in a way that suggested continuity rather than neglect. Families before us had stood here, presumably with better organisational skills, doing much the same thing.

That first evening, we walked the few minutes down to the shore. The beach at Kramnitze is not dramatic. It is shallow, muddy in places, scattered with reeds and the debris of small-scale fishing. My children found a dead crab and treated it like a major archaeological discovery. I stood there in my still-wrong shoes, feet aching slightly, and felt the particular relief of having finally arrived somewhere that did not require anything of me. No itinerary, no expectations, no performance. Just the quiet of a Danish evening, the faint smell of the Baltic, and the realisation that I had packed three different phone chargers but no shoes for my own child.

We stopped at the small local shop on the way back, the kind that sells milk, bread, and not much else. I bought terrible Danish biscuits and felt genuinely pleased with myself. The woman at the till spoke English with the resigned patience of someone who has dealt with many British families before. She did not mention shoes. I appreciated this.

By the time we got back to the cottage, the children were filthy, my wife was laughing at something I had missed, and I was already thinking about whether we could justify coming back next year. Possibly with a checklist. Possibly with shoes. But probably not, if I am honest with myself. There is something about that first evening in a place, when the journey is still in your bones and the holiday has not yet accumulated its routines, that feels precious in a way you only recognise later. We sat outside as the light faded, wrapped in blankets against the Danish summer cool, and watched a hare lope across the garden without the slightest concern for us. I think that was the moment I properly relaxed. The hare did not care about my packing. The cottage did not care. Lolland, with its flat horizons and quiet confidence, simply let us be there, slightly chaotic, slightly ridiculous, and entirely welcome.

The shoes, incidentally, were procured the next day from a supermarket in Rodby. They were bright green and slightly too large, and my daughter wore them for the entire fortnight without a single complaint. Some things, I am learning, simply work themselves out if you let them.