I have never been so relieved to see a cottage with its own parking space as I was when we finally rocked up to Thale after what can only be described as a spectacularly bungled journey. The sat nav had taken us down what I am fairly certain was a farm track, then a gravel path that seemed to dead-end into someone's vegetable patch. My partner, who had insisted on doing all the driving, maintained a grim silence for the final twenty minutes while I made helpful comments like "I think that was a goat" and "are we technically in someone's garden now?" We were not, as it turned out, though we were definitely not on an official road. The real kicker came when we discovered the proper route in, which was tarmac all the way and took roughly four minutes from the main road. We had been circling for forty.

The cottage itself appeared like a reward for our suffering. A proper Harz half-timbered affair with a generous garden that immediately made me want to abandon all ambition. I had packed hiking boots with the sincere intention of conquering the Bode Gorge and striding manfully up to the Hexentanzplatz. They remained in the car boot for the entire week. The garden had a bench positioned in a patch of afternoon sun, a small table perfect for balancing a mug, and enough bird activity to make me feel like I was in a nature documentary. I spent a solid hour on that bench within twenty minutes of arrival, still wearing my coat, just staring at a blackbird who was clearly judging my life choices.

Inside, the place had that satisfying cottage smell of wood and slightly old books. The kitchen was compact enough that you could make tea without actually moving your feet, which I consider a design triumph. I immediately located the kettle, the biscuit tin, and the spot on the sofa that would become my territory for the week. My partner unpacked with irritating efficiency while I performed what I can only describe as a slow horizontal tour of the available seating options.

The first evening set the tone entirely. We had brought supplies from a supermarket in Quedlinburg, which is a town so pretty it feels almost aggressive about it. I assembled a supper of bread, cheese, and various items from jars, then took it out to the garden with a bottle of something local and white. The sun went down. The birds did their evening business. I achieved absolutely nothing of note and felt genuinely triumphant about it. There is a particular pleasure in being somewhere picturesque and deliberately ignoring every opportunity to do something picturesque in it. I could hear the river from the garden, which seemed to be flowing specifically to provide me with ambient noise.

By day two I had established a rigorous routine of morning tea in bed, a slow wander to the garden with a book, a period of intense reading interspersed with staring at clouds, and then a late lunch that merged imperceptibly into afternoon reading. I finished a novel I had been carrying around for six months. I started another and finished that too. My partner took one brief walk to the Rosstrappe viewpoint and returned with photographs I looked at politely before returning to my bench. The weather obliged with a mix of sunshine and soft rain that made the garden smell even better and provided excellent excuse for staying exactly where I was.

I did make it to the riverbank once, for perhaps fifteen minutes. It was lovely. I went back to the cottage and had a nap to recover.