I have never been so relieved to see a wooden cabin in my entire life. Twelve hours after leaving Gatwick, there I was, standing in a Hemsedal car park at half past nine at night, watching my partner discover that the "spare" car key I had triumphantly produced was, in fact, the key to my mother's Ford Fiesta back in Wigan.

The proper key was sitting on our kitchen table. In England. I could practically hear it mocking me.

The journey had been long enough without this final flourish. Flight to Oslo, train to Gol, then a hire car up through the valley as the light faded and the mountains turned from green to grey to black. I had driven the last leg in that peculiar state of tiredness where every road sign feels personally accusatory. "Sharp bend," they said. I know, I thought. I am sharp-bending. Leave me alone.

We found the cabin eventually, part of a cluster near the ski area, though in late September the slopes were bare and the whole place had the peaceful, slightly expectant air of a theatre before the audience arrives. The snow would come. For now, there was just the quiet of high ground, the sort of quiet that makes you realise how much noise you normally carry around in your head.

Getting inside proved interesting. The key safe code worked, thank every Norwegian deity, and the door opened onto warmth and the faint smell of pine. I stood there in the hallway, still wearing my coat, suddenly aware that I had been clenched like a fist for approximately six hours. My shoulders dropped. My jaw unclenched. I may have made an involuntary noise, something between a sigh and a small animal dying.

The cabin was exactly what I needed without knowing I needed it. Proper wooden walls, not that laminated nonsense. A kitchen that looked like someone actually cooked in it rather than just photographed it for a brochure. Windows that framed the darkening valley like paintings someone had hung with excessive generosity. I opened one and the cold air rushed in, carrying that particular mountain smell of earth and pine and distance. I breathed it in like medicine.

My partner was already investigating the bedrooms, making the pleased sounds of someone who has spotted adequate storage and firm mattresses. I stayed in the main room, suddenly conscious of how rarely I stop moving. There is always the next thing, the next email, the next minor crisis requiring my inadequate attention. Here, there was a sofa. There was a view. There was nothing that needed doing for at least twelve hours, possibly longer if I really committed to the bit.

I made tea with the questionable bag I had brought from home, because some habits survive any journey. The mug warmed my hands. Through the window, I could just make out the shape of mountains I would explore tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, or perhaps never if the sofa continued to be this comfortable. There was no pressure. This was novel.

The key mishap, I decided, drinking my tea and watching my partner emerge from the bedroom with an expression of sleepy approval, had actually been a gift. It had forced me fully into the present, too tired to plan or worry or check my phone. I was simply there, in a wooden cabin in Buskerud, with nothing but the night and the mountains and the faint hum of a fridge I had not yet opened.

Tomorrow I would work out the local shops and the walking routes and whether the ski lift operated out of season. Tonight, I would sit in this unfamiliar room and let the journey drain out of me like water from a bath.

I finished my tea. I did not check my phone. The mountains stayed where they were, indifferent and magnificent, and for the first time in months, so did I.