I have never been so relieved to see a wooden cabin in my life, and that includes the time I got caught in a hailstorm on the Yorkshire Moors. The drive up to Hallingskarvet Skibyen from Oslo had been going so well, too. Smooth roads, dramatic scenery, me feeling terribly sophisticated with my Norwegian playlist and a bag of prawn crisps. Then came the final five miles, where my sat nav decided to have what I can only describe as a small electronic breakdown and sent me down a track that was definitely meant for tractors. Or possibly goats. I ended up reversing for nearly a mile with a trailer of increasingly agitated sheep watching me like I was the entertainment for their afternoon. By the time I spotted the actual cabin, nestled among the birch trees with the Hallingskarvet plateau looming behind it, I was ready to kiss the ground. I didn't, because it was muddy, but the sentiment was there.

The first thing I did, naturally, was investigate the kitchen. I am one of those people who plans entire holidays around what I might cook, and the photos had promised something special. I was not disappointed. The kitchen at Skibyen is the sort that makes you want to roll up your sleeves immediately, all warm wood and proper knives and a view of the mountains that makes chopping onions feel almost spiritual. I unpacked my groceries from the Geilo supermarket, which I had raided with embarrassing enthusiasm earlier that day. Reindeer sausages, cloudberries in a jar that cost more than my first car, a wedge of brunost that I intended to shave onto everything, and several types of fish I couldn't quite identify but felt morally obliged to purchase.

That first evening, I attempted a traditional Norwegian stew with the reindeer meat. I had found a recipe on my phone, written in what I now suspect was aggressively simplified English, and I followed it with the confidence of a person who absolutely should have read it twice. The result was edible, technically, though rather more peppery than intended due to my confusion between "tskje" and "sskje" on the measuring spoons I had bought impulsively at the supermarket. I ate it on the terrace as the light stretched across the valley, feeling simultaneously proud and slightly punished. The view forgave me, which is more than I can say for my own taste buds.

Morning brought a pilgrimage to the local baker in Geilo, a ten-minute drive that I justified as necessary exercise after my stew debacle. The baker there produces something called "skolebrod" that I can only describe as a custard-filled revelation. I bought four, intending them to last two days, and ate two in the car park like a man who had never seen bread before. The local butcher, just around the corner, provided lamb ribs that I slow-cooked that evening with root vegetables from a farm honesty box I had spotted near the cabin. This time I measured nothing and trusted instinct, and the result was infinitely better. There is a lesson there about overthinking, which I have since applied to nothing else in my life whatsoever.

The cabin's barbecue became my obsession. I grilled mackerel I had bought from a fisherman near Ustaoset, stuffed with dill I found growing wild nearby, and served with potatoes boiled in their skins and drenched in butter. I ate outside until the midges drove me in, then finished at the kitchen table with a glass of aquavit that made my eyes water pleasantly. One afternoon I attempted to make flatbrod from scratch, having found a bag of barley flour at the back of a cupboard. The result was more "flat" than "brod," resembling a frisbee more than bread, but I broke it into a soup of dried fish and potatoes and pretended this had been my intention all along.

By my final morning, I had established something of a routine. Strong coffee on the terrace, a walk to gather my thoughts and occasionally wild mushrooms if I felt brave, then a slow preparation of whatever local ingredients I had accumulated. The Geilo farmers market, held on Saturdays, provided cloudberry jam and cured meats and conversations with people whose English was approximately as good as my Norwegian, which is to say we communicated chiefly through enthusiastic gestures and shared samples.

I left Skibyen with my clothes smelling faintly of wood smoke and brunost, and a notebook full of recipes that ranged from "definitely make again" to "never speak of this." The drive back to Oslo was uneventful, my sat nav behaving with suspicious meekness. I stopped at the same supermarket on the way out and bought another jar of cloudberries, which now sits in my kitchen cupboard in Manchester, waiting for a courage I have not yet found.