I'd been on the road since half past six that morning, which is frankly obscene for a man who considers breakfast to be the most important meal of the day and refuses to eat it before nine. The drive from Harwich to the Hook of Holland had been smooth enough, but then came the Dutch motorways, and then the smaller roads, and then the smaller still roads, until I found myself crawling along a lane so narrow I could have shaken hands with the cows on either side.

The sat nav had given up about twenty minutes earlier, opting instead for a sort of digital sulk where it simply showed me driving through a grey void. I was attempting to fold an enormous Ordnance Survey-style map across my steering wheel when I misjudged the edge of a canal bridge and sent my travel mug of tepid coffee sliding off the passenger seat and directly into my canvas bag. My swimming trunks, thoughtfully packed in anticipation of Friesland's famously unpredictable weather, absorbed most of it. The rest went on my phone charger. I sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, wondering if I could simply reverse all the way back to England.

But then I rounded the final bend and there it was: Balk, a village so perfectly composed of waterways and tidy brick houses that I half expected to find it had been arranged specifically for a postcard photographer. The property sat right on the water's edge, a proper old Friesland place with that distinctive stepped gable and windows that seemed to wink at you in the afternoon light. I parked with the exaggerated care of a man who has already had one mishap too many and stood there on the pavement, stretching my legs and feeling the particular ache that comes from four hours of tense driving.

The key was exactly where the instructions said it would be, which felt like a small miracle. I fumbled with the lock, still muttering about the coffee incident, and stepped inside to that wonderful hush that holiday cottages have before you've properly moved in. The smell hit me first: that clean, slightly woody scent of a place that's been aired and prepared. Wooden floors, white walls, and everywhere you looked, windows framing some new angle of the water. The kitchen opened straight onto a little terrace with steps down to a private jetty, and I stood there like a fool, still holding my car keys, watching a duck paddle past with an expression of evident superiority.

I had intended to unpack methodically, to establish order before exploring. Instead I found myself opening every cupboard and drawer with the nosiness of a prospective buyer, discovering the coffee machine (the irony), the stack of board games, the little basket of local tourist leaflets. Upstairs, the bedrooms had that satisfying slope to the ceilings that makes you duck instinctively even when you don't need to. I chose the one with the view across the water, threw my coffee-stained bag onto the chair, and lay on the bed with my shoes still on, listening to the unfamiliar quiet.

The thing about arriving somewhere new is that you bring all your journey with you. I could still feel the vibration of the ferry in my legs, still taste that awful service station sandwich, still smart from the indignity of the travel mug incident. But lying there, watching the light shift on the ceiling, I felt the particular pleasure of knowing I had nowhere else to be. The village of Balk, with its population of perhaps a few thousand, its church tower visible from the upstairs window, its network of canals that I would later learn connected to the larger Slotermeer lake, was now my temporary address.

I got up eventually, made a proper coffee in the machine I'd discovered, and took it outside to the jetty. The duck had been joined by two companions. They ignored me completely. I found this deeply satisfying.