The thing about driving to Hemsedal is that you think you've prepared. You've packed the thermal socks, the walking boots you definitely didn't need to buy new, and enough snacks to survive a minor Arctic expedition. What you don't prepare for is your sat nav developing what I can only describe as an existential crisis somewhere outside Gol.

"Turn left," it commanded, as we faced a fjord.

"Recalculating," it sighed, as we passed the same red barn for the third time.

By the time we spotted the actual turning for our cabin, my partner had adopted that particular set to his jaw that means either divorce or a very large gin. Possibly both. We bumped up the gravel track, mistaking the neighbour's drive for ours and performing a seventeen-point turn that entertained a local dog enormously. The dog, I noted, did not offer to help.

Then we found it. The cabin sat there in late afternoon light, all wooden angles and quiet confidence, like it had been waiting patiently for fools exactly like us. I stepped out of the car and promptly went arse over elbow on a patch of gravel that had looked perfectly innocent. My partner laughed so hard he forgot to be cross about the sat nav. I lay there for a moment, contemplating the Norwegian sky and the particular indignity of holiday injuries sustained before you've even seen the kitchen.

The kitchen, when I hobbled to it, was Scandinavian practicality incarnate. Everything had a place. Everything made sense. I felt immediately judged by the coffee machine, which looked like it had a PhD. But the windows. The windows were the thing. Floor-to-ceiling, framing mountains that sat in the distance like they'd been painted there by someone showing off.

We didn't do much that first evening. Unpacked badly. Made pasta with some urgency because shops in Hemsedal operate on what I can only call "Norwegian time," which bears no relation to anyone's urgency but their own. Sat on the deck with our disappointing wine and watched the light change. The mountains went from grey to pink to something approaching gold, and I forgot about my grazed elbow entirely.

The next morning, I understood what we had actually come for. Sunshine poured through those enormous windows at an hour that felt almost aggressive. I made coffee with the overqualified machine and took it outside in my socks, which was stupid because dew, but necessary because the deck was warm already and the air smelled of pine and nothing else. My partner emerged eventually, blinking like a mole, and we sat there for two hours. Two hours. Doing absolutely nothing except watching a bird we couldn't identify and discussing whether we should identify it. We decided against. Some things can just be birds.

The days that followed established a rhythm so gentle it barely qualified as rhythm. Morning coffee on the deck. A walk to the local shop for provisions, which always took longer than necessary because you had to stop and look at things. The river. The particular way the light fell through birch trees. A dog that was definitely the same dog, following us at a judgmental distance. We bought bread and cheese and very expensive tomatoes and wandered back.

I had brought three books and finished two, which is a personal record for any holiday not involving hospitalisation. There is something about Norwegian sunshine, when it comes, that makes reading feel like an active pursuit rather than mere laziness. I lay on the grass behind the cabin, the kind of grass that is actually comfortable somehow, and read until the words swam, then stared at the sky until they didn't. My partner fished, badly. He caught nothing, which he claimed was the point. I didn't argue. We were both lying about our respective hobbies by then, and it was a comfortable lie.

One afternoon we walked to the nearby lake, which took forty minutes of gentle downhill ambling. The water was the colour of weak tea and freezing, obviously. We paddled like children, shrieking, then lay on the rocks to dry. I thought about work for perhaps thirty seconds, then the sun moved behind a cloud and I thought about whether I needed a jumper. This felt like genuine progress.

The local area offered exactly as much as we wanted, which was very little. A cafe in Hemsedal centre where the owner remembered our order on the second visit. A path along the river where we saw no one for an hour, then three people with very serious walking poles who nodded like we were all in a secret club. The secret was that we had no idea what we were doing, but we were doing it slowly and in excellent weather.

On our final morning, I woke early and made coffee in the half-light. The mountains were just visible, still sleeping. I sat on that deck in my stupid socks again, colder now, and felt something I couldn't immediately name. Not contentment exactly. Something more specific. The particular pleasure of having been temporarily unnecessary. No one needed me to be anywhere, or to achieve anything, or even to identify birds correctly. I had simply existed in a place for a while, and the place had permitted it.

We left eventually, obviously. The sat nav behaved marginally better on the return, though it did try to send us through what appeared to be a sheep field. I didn't even mind. Some part of me was still lying on that grass, still reading until the words swam, still being absolutely nothing in particular in the Norwegian sunshine.