I'd never driven to Groningen before, and my sat-nav clearly hadn't either. Somewhere around Leeuwarden it decided that a narrow farm track was definitely the main road to Lauwersoog, and I found myself wedged between two ditches, wondering whether to reverse or simply abandon the car and start a new life as a turnip farmer. My wife was reading the directions from her phone with that particular calm that means she is absolutely not calm, and the children had gone suspiciously quiet in the back, which always means someone needs a wee or has done something unspeakable with a packet of crisps.

We eventually arrived at the holiday park two hours later than planned, by which point I had developed a profound hatred of Dutch agricultural infrastructure and a crick in my neck from checking mirrors. But then I stepped out of the car, and something peculiar happened. The wind off the Wadden Sea hit me like a friendly slap, carrying that particular smell of salt and mud and something else I couldn't name, and I felt my shoulders drop about six inches.

The cottage was one of those sturdy, no-nonsense buildings that the Dutch do so well, all clean lines and enormous windows that seemed to invite the landscape inside. I fumbled with the key code, as one always does, convinced that this would be the time the system finally rejected me and my family would have to sleep in the boot. It didn't, of course, and the door swung open onto a living space that managed to be both modern and somehow deeply comforting, like a very efficient hug.

My first impression, I'll admit, was relief. Relief that the photos hadn't lied, that there were actual beds and not inflatable mattresses, that the kitchen looked like somewhere a person might genuinely cook rather than simply assemble sad sandwiches. The children thundered upstairs to claim their territory with the territorial zeal of medieval warlords, and my wife and I stood in the kitchen with cups of tea we'd made in approximately ninety seconds, listening to them argue about who had the better view of absolutely nothing in particular.

I walked to the window with my tea and watched the light changing over the Lauwersmeer. The water was doing that thing where it looks like it's made of different metals depending on the angle, silvery here, almost pewter there, and a couple of small boats were puttering about with the purposeful aimlessness of people who have nowhere particular to be. I thought about the sat-nav disaster and found I couldn't really hold onto my irritation. It seemed to belong to a different person, one who hadn't yet stood in this particular kitchen with this particular cup of tea.

The children came crashing back down demanding to know if there was Wi-Fi, which there was, and if they could go outside, which they could, and whether I would come and look at a beetle, which I absolutely would not. My wife laughed at something, I can't remember what, and I realised that this was the whole point, really. Not the beetle, obviously, but the simplicity of it. A solid roof, a view of water, the promise of days that would unfold without much planning because there didn't need to be much planning.

That evening we walked to the harbour, which took all of ten minutes, and ate fish so fresh it practically introduced itself. The children were still awake at an hour that would have caused domestic crisis at home, and nobody much minded. I watched the sky doing extraordinary things with pink and grey, and thought about how I would describe this place to friends back in the UK. I'd probably mention the sat-nav, because it's a better story than "everything was lovely," but I'd also try to explain that particular quality of light, that sense of space, the way a simple cottage can feel like exactly enough.

I never did manage that explanation, by the way. Some things you just have to stand in a kitchen with a cup of tea to understand.