The satnav had been insisting for the last twenty miles that I was "arriving at destination" whilst I was quite clearly trundling past yet another identical field of sheep, so by the time I actually pulled up to the holiday home in Voorthuizen I was in that peculiar state of British irritation mixed with sheepish relief. I'd got myself properly lost on the A1, taken a wrong turn somewhere near Amersfoort, and ended up doing three laps of what I can only describe as a very aggressive roundabout that seemed to have its own agenda. The final indignity came when I reversed into the parking space and heard a definite crunch. I'd only gone and backed into the wheelie bin. The bin, I should note, was entirely unscathed. My dignity, less so.

I was still inspecting the non-existent damage to my bumper when the back door of the neighbouring house swung open and a chap emerged who looked to be in his mid-sixties, wearing gardening clogs and an expression of profound curiosity. He introduced himself as Henk, though he pronounced it with a throat-clearing sound that I immediately knew I would never be able to replicate. He'd lived next door for forty years, he told me, and had "seen many English come and go, mostly lost." I couldn't tell if this was a compliment or an observation, so I laughed in that polite British way that covers all eventualities.

Henk insisted on helping me with my cases, which was fortunate as I'd packed approximately fourteen times more clothing than necessary for a long weekend. "You English always prepare for flood and famine," he said, hoisting a suitcase with concerning ease for a man of his build. I started to explain about our unpredictable weather, then realised this was entirely his point.

The property itself was one of those wonderfully Dutch affairs, all clean lines and enormous windows that made me feel immediately exposed to the judgement of passing wildlife. I was still fumbling with the key code when another figure appeared, this time from the direction of the garden path. This was Mieke, who introduced herself as the "local welcome committee," though she quickly admitted this was a title she'd invented herself and that the actual committee had folded in 2019 due to "creative differences about cheese."

Mieke was seventy-three, wore a tracksuit that suggested serious athletic intentions, and spoke English with the confidence of someone who'd learned it primarily from watching Midsomer Murders. She'd brought me a welcome gift of stroopwafels, which she'd made herself, and spent the next twenty minutes explaining precisely how I'd been storing them incorrectly my entire life. "You put them on the cup, yes? To warm? No. This is tourist nonsense. You eat immediately, with coffee beside. Two separate things." I nodded with the intensity of a man receiving sacred knowledge.

Henk had disappeared during this lecture, only to return with a bicycle pump and the announcement that my rear tyre looked "a bit sorry." I hadn't even mentioned cycling plans, but apparently in Voorthuizen this was simply assumed. He pumped the tyre in silence, refused payment with a wave, and told me that if I wanted the "real" Voorthuizen experience I should visit the baker on Dorpsstraat tomorrow morning at half seven, "when the bread is honest."

Mieke snorted at this. "Henk thinks everything before eight in the morning is honest. After that, who can say?" They had clearly been neighbours long enough to develop a conversational shorthand that excluded outsiders, but in the gentlest possible way.

By the time they both retreated, I found myself standing in this unfamiliar kitchen with my unnecessarily vast luggage, a slightly crushed wheelie bin outside, and the distinct sensation that I'd already experienced more genuine human interaction than in the previous six months of my life back in Reading. The satnav had tried to ruin everything. The roundabout had conspired against me. The bin had witnessed my shame. And yet here I was, holding slightly warm stroopwafels and already wondering what made seven-thirty bread more truthful than its afternoon equivalent.

I put the kettle on, using the wrong socket first because European kitchens remain fundamentally mysterious to me, and watched through that enormous window as Henk reappeared in his garden to conduct what appeared to be a very serious conversation with a cat. The cat, I noticed, was paying considerably more attention than I had during most of my recent work meetings.

Perhaps that was the thing about arriving somewhere properly, mishaps and all. You couldn't curate it, couldn't smooth the edges. You just had to turn up, crunch into someone's bin, and see who emerged to tell you about honest bread.