I have never been so grateful for a thermos of tea in my entire life. There I was, trundling up the drive to our holiday let in Honsinge Lyng, Zealand, with the wind doing its absolute best to rearrange my hair into something resembling a distressed seabird. It was late October, and Danish autumn had decided to put on its most theatrical performance just for our arrival.

The journey from Copenhagen had been straightforward enough, a pleasant train ride followed by a hire car that smelled faintly of pine air freshener and regret. My partner had insisted on navigating, which in our relationship means confidently misreading directions while I grip the steering wheel and practice deep breathing. The mishap came three miles from the property, when a sudden downpour turned the final country lane into something approaching a small river. We hit a puddle with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for theme park log flumes. The splash was magnificent. The state of my left trouser leg was less so. I spent the remaining minutes of the drive with a wet calf pressed against the heater vent, making small whimpering noises and questioning my life choices.

But then we turned the final corner, and there it was. The house sat among low rolling fields with that particular Scandinavian composure, all clean lines and sensible windows, as if quietly confident that the weather would sort itself out eventually. The surrounding landscape had taken on that extraordinary late-year palette, everything gold and umber and faded green, the sort of colours that make you feel slightly melancholy in the best possible way. The trees were nearly bare, their branches scratching patterns against a sky the colour of old pewter.

Stepping inside was like entering a different season entirely. The place was warm, properly warm, with that particular dense heat you only get from a well-insulated Danish property. The wooden floors smelled of beeswax and the faint saltiness that seems to permeate everything near the Zealand coast. I immediately located the wood-burning stove and felt something primitive settle in my chest. This was a house designed for exactly this time of year, for the long dark evenings and the mornings when you wake to frost spiderwebbed across the windows.

I made the tea, changed into dry trousers, and stood at the kitchen window watching the light fail earlier than I thought possible. The darkness here feels different in autumn, more absolute somehow, pressing against the glass with genuine intent. You become very aware of the small circle of warmth you have created, the lamplight and the stove and the kettle steaming on the hob. It is not a threatening darkness, but it is insistent. It asks something of you, this seasonal enclosure. It asks you to slow down, to stop pretending you might go for an evening stroll, to accept that the next few hours belong to books and conversation and perhaps an unreasonable quantity of cheese.

That first evening, we did not venture out again. We lit the stove and watched the flames consume birch logs with efficient Danish thoroughness. Through the windows, the fields had disappeared into blackness, and I found myself thinking about how different this place would feel in summer, all light and long evenings and doors thrown open to the garden. But we were not here for that version. We were here for the compressed intimacy of the turning year, for the particular pleasure of being warm while the world outside grew cold.

I fell asleep that night to the sound of wind in the bare branches, already forgetting the sodden trouser incident, already planning which bakery we would brave the morning chill to find. Some arrivals stay with you. This one, damp and windswept and unexpectedly beautiful, will be among them.