I have never been so relieved to see a roof as I was when we finally pulled up to our little place in Sappada. The journey from Venice had been straightforward enough, but somewhere around Belluno I decided I could navigate better than the sat nav. This was, of course, complete nonsense. We ended up on a road that grew narrower and narrower until I was genuinely worried we'd encounter a goat and have to reverse half a mile. My wife sat in silence, which is always worse than shouting. The children found it hilarious. I found it character-building.

By the time we reached the house, I had aged approximately seven years. But stepping out of the car, the air hit me immediately. Proper mountain air, thin and sharp and nothing like the stuff we breathe back in Manchester. I stood there like a fool, taking great lungfuls of it, while my daughter asked why Daddy was doing his "meditation face." I was not meditating. I was recovering.

The house itself was exactly what the photos had promised, which is rare enough to mention. A traditional wooden chalet-style place, all beams and balconies and that particular shade of brown that somehow looks right in mountains but would look utterly mad anywhere else. The key was in the lockbox as arranged, though I managed to drop it down the steps twice before getting the door open. My hands were still shaking from the drive, or perhaps from the altitude, or perhaps I am simply clumsy. Probably all three.

Inside, the smell hit me before anything else. Wood, obviously, but something else too. Cleanliness, I suppose, but the welcoming kind. Not that sterile hotel smell. The sort of clean that comes from someone actually caring. The living area was open and warm, with a wood-burning stove that the children immediately claimed as their territory. They had not seen it burn yet. They simply liked the look of it. Children are strange creatures.

I made the mistake of volunteering to bring in the luggage while my wife investigated the kitchen. This meant I made four trips up and down those same steps, each time growing more aware of how unfit I have become. On the third trip I paused to admire the view, which was genuinely breathtaking and not merely an excuse to catch my breath. The mountains rose on every side, close enough to feel protective rather than intimidating. Sappada sits in a sort of bowl, I realised, which explains why the light feels different. Softer, somehow, or perhaps I am romanticising because I was on holiday and determined to be romantic about everything.

My wife emerged to announce that the kitchen had everything we needed and, crucially, a coffee maker that she had already figured out. I married well. We stood on the little balcony with our coffees, watching the evening come in, and I felt something shift in my chest. Not indigestion, though the drive had certainly earned me some. Something like perspective. The children were already bickering gently inside about who would sleep in which room, and I did not care. Let them bicker. We were here.

That first evening, we walked barely two hundred metres to a small trattoria we had spotted. The food was simple and perfect. My son declared the spaghetti the best he had ever eaten, and he is not a child given to declarations. We walked back in darkness, the mountains invisible but somehow present, and I did not once think about work or emails or the various minor disasters I had left behind. They would wait. Everything waits, in the end.

I fell asleep that night to the sound of nothing much at all, which is its own kind of music.