I have never been quite so pleased to see a set of wind turbines as I was when we finally spotted them on the horizon, because those towering white blades meant one thing: Tossens was near, and our four-hour slog from the ferry at Hook of Holland was nearly at an end.

The trouble had started, as trouble so often does, with my own misplaced confidence. Somewhere around Oldenburg I had decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I knew a better route than the sat nav. "It'll be more scenic," I told my partner, who made a non-committal noise that I now recognise as the sound of someone mentally preparing for disaster. Forty minutes later we were crawling through a village whose single street was being aggressively resurfaced by men with steamrollers and absolutely no hurry in the world. I smiled tightly. My partner opened a bag of crisps with the theatrical patience of a bomb disposal expert.

By the time we reached the North Sea coast, the car smelled of coffee spills and regret. The holiday park entrance loomed ahead, and I felt something dangerously close to relief until I realised I had absolutely no idea which of the identical sandy-coloured cottages was ours. I had written the number on my phone, which was currently at four percent battery and being used by my partner to Google whether the local supermarket would still be open. "DNS412," I muttered, squinting at doorways like a confused detective. We did three laps of the park before I swallowed my pride and asked a man walking a very small and judgmental dog. He pointed to a cottage three doors from where we had first parked. Of course it was.

The key safe was where the instructions said, but the instructions had not mentioned that I would need the dexterity of a concert pianist to open it. I stood there in the coastal wind, fingers fumbling, while my partner unloaded cases with the grim determination of someone who had seen this all before. When the key finally clattered free, I may have said something mildly triumphant that was absolutely not suitable for repeating in polite company.

Stepping inside, though, the chaos of the journey began to dissolve. The cottage had that particular smell of clean linen and slightly too much pine air freshener that immediately says "holiday let." The living area was bright and uncomplicated, all pale wood and practical furniture, with sliding doors that opened onto a small terrace. I stepped out and there it was: the Wadden Sea stretching grey-green to the horizon, those blessed wind turbines turning lazily in the middle distance, and the peculiar flat emptiness of the North German coast that somehow feels like breathing space after too long in busy places.

My partner appeared beside me with two cups of tea made from the emergency supplies we had packed. We stood there in silence for a moment, watching a herring gull attempt to steal a sandwich from a cyclist on the dyke path below. "Nice view," my partner said eventually. "Worth the scenic route?"

I sipped my tea and considered the question with the honesty that only arrives after minor travel trauma. "Let's just say," I replied, "that next time I'm listening to the sat nav."

The gull succeeded with the sandwich. The cyclist shouted something in Low German that I chose to interpret as good-natured. And I stood there on that terrace, already feeling the particular peace that comes from being precisely nowhere important, with a whole week of precisely nothing stretching ahead like the tide flats at low water: flat, open, and full of unexpected things if you knew where to look.