The thing about driving to Vormsund is that you start to believe Norway's roads were designed by someone who really, really enjoys suspense. We'd been going since Oslo, which is only meant to be about an hour away, but between my partner's steadfast refusal to trust the satnav and my own talent for misreading Norwegian road signs, we'd managed to turn it into something closer to two. The final stretch down a gravel track had us both convinced we'd taken a wrong turn into someone's private timber yard. Then the trees parted, and there it was: a proper red wooden cabin sitting right on the water's edge, looking like it had been waiting patiently for us to stop being idiots and find it.

I should mention the mishap now, because it rather set the tone. We'd stopped at a Kiwi supermarket in Nes to pick up supplies, and in my enthusiasm for the whole "self-catering in the Norwegian wilderness" fantasy, I'd loaded up on enough groceries to survive a winter. Including, crucially, a dozen eggs. You can see where this is going. Somewhere between wrestling a wheeled suitcase across the gravel and fumbling for the key box code, the bag containing the eggs took a direct hit against the cabin's exterior wall. Not the door, mind you. The wall. I have no idea how I managed that particular geometry. What I do know is that eleven of the twelve eggs committed suicide instantly, and the twelfth looked at me with an expression of profound disappointment before I accidentally stepped on it. My partner just stood there, holding the fish we'd also bought, and said, "Well. Breakfast is sorted then."

The cabin itself, once we'd navigated the eggy threshold, was exactly the sort of place that makes you forgive yourself for being a complete clot. Proper Scandinavian simplicity: pale wood everywhere, a kitchen that actually had decent knives for once, and windows that framed the water like someone had hung paintings specifically to mock my earlier incompetence. The air inside smelled of pine and something faintly smoky from the wood-burning stove in the corner. I immediately decided this made me a more authentic person, despite having just destroyed most of our protein supply within thirty seconds of arrival.

I made the executive decision to explore before attempting any cleaning. The deck outside was where the whole property came into its own. Direct water access, a couple of those wooden Adirondack chairs that look uncomfortable but somehow aren't, and enough quiet to make you aware of how much noise you normally carry around in your own head. A small rowing boat was tied up at the private jetty, and I stood there for a while watching the light do that particular Scandinavian thing where evening seems to last for hours, stretching everything into soft gold. Somewhere across the water, a dog barked once and thought better of it.

Back inside, my partner had already started the coffee and was examining the stove with the intensity of someone who'd grown up with central heating and regarded open flames as essentially recreational. We sat at the kitchen table with our mugs, surrounded by the faintly ridiculous quantity of non-egg food we'd bought, and I felt that particular shift that happens on proper holidays: the realisation that whatever chaos you'd brought with you, geographical distance had at least given it a different shape. The egg incident was already becoming funny rather than mortifying. The quiet was doing something useful to my shoulders. I caught myself thinking that perhaps I could become a person who owned a rowing boat, who understood tides, who didn't immediately destroy fragile things through overenthusiasm.

Then I went to put my mug down and nearly knocked over the remaining fish.