I have never been so grateful to see a gravel driveway in all my life. After six hours on the road from Dover, two wrong turns near Lille, and one spectacular argument with a sat nav that insisted Ledinghem was "in a field," we finally crunched to a halt outside a handsome stone farmhouse that looked exactly like the photos, which was more than I could say for my hair.

The mishap, because there is always one, happened roughly forty minutes earlier. I had insisted on stopping at a Carrefour to pick up essentials, by which I mean cheese, wine, and more cheese. In my enthusiasm, I managed to lock the car with the keys still in the boot, along with our suitcases, my phone, and my dignity. My partner, who had warned me about this exact scenario somewhere around Calais, stood in the supermarket car park with an expression I can only describe as lovingly murderous. Forty euros to a very amused breakdown service later, we were mobile again, though my pride remains in that car park to this day.

Arriving at the property, then, felt like reaching sanctuary. The farmhouse sat at the end of a lane lined with pollarded willows, the sort of trees that look like they have had a very severe haircut and are still getting used to it. A low stone wall enclosed a garden that was doing that glorious late-summer thing of being slightly overgrown in the most picturesque way possible. Wildflowers nodded in the breeze. A cat watched us from the neighbour's wall with the undisguised suspicion of a creature who has seen many British holidaymakers come and go.

The key was exactly where the property notes said it would be, which I took as a personal victory after the morning I had endured. The front door opened with a satisfying weight, the kind of door that has been doing its job for a century and sees no reason to change now. Inside, the smell hit me immediately: wood polish, dried lavender, and that particular cool, earthy scent of old stone walls. I stood in the hallway and felt something in my shoulders actually drop. The drive, the locking incident, the sat nav's betrayal, all of it suddenly seemed worth it for the simple pleasure of standing somewhere quiet.

The kitchen was the heart of the place, all terracotta tiles and a proper farmhouse table that could have seated twelve. I ran my hand along the oak beam above the cooker and immediately caught a splinter, because apparently I cannot be trusted with rustic charm. The sitting room had a fireplace you could practically stand in, and windows that looked out over rolling farmland. I found myself doing that thing where you open every door and drawer just to see, like a child exploring a grandparent's house for the first time.

Upstairs, the bedrooms were simple and spotless, with white linen and views across fields that seemed to stretch forever in that particular flat, expansive way of the Nord-Pas de Calais countryside. I opened the window in what would be our room and heard nothing but birdsong and, faintly, a dog barking somewhere in the distance. After the tunnel, the motorways, the car park debacle, this felt like another planet entirely.

My partner found me twenty minutes later, still standing at that open window, apparently talking to myself about how we should probably buy a farmhouse. He reminded me that I struggle to maintain a window box, which is fair. But in that first golden hour of arrival, with the late afternoon sun turning the stone walls honey-coloured and a bottle of the Carrefour wine finally in hand, I genuinely believed I could become a different sort of person entirely. The sort who wears linen trousers and knows about pruning.

The cat was still watching from the wall when I went outside with my glass. I raised it to him in a toast. He did not respond, which seemed about right.