I have never been so grateful to see a wooden cabin in my life, and that includes the time I got caught in a hailstorm in the Lake District. The drive from Oslo to Tunhovd had been spectacular in that way that makes you forget your own name, fjords glinting through pine trees, the whole Nordic postcard business. But somewhere near Honefoss, in my excitement at spotting an actual moose, I managed to send our carefully compiled shopping list flying out the passenger window. My partner's face, I shall never forget. We had planned to stop at a proper supermarket. We ended up at a petrol station buying what I can only describe as a very ambitious selection of cured meats and a single, enormous cabbage.

The cabin itself, when we finally found it tucked among the birch trees above the lake, was everything the photos had promised and then some. Red clapboard, white trim, the whole hygge fantasy. I stood on the deck clutching my petrol station cabbage like some sort of vegetable-based peace offering while my partner unpacked the car in pointed silence. The key was in the lockbox, the air smelled of pine resin and woodsmoke from somewhere distant, and inside awaited a kitchen that would either redeem me or expose me utterly.

I should mention at this point that I am not a natural cook. I am a cook of enthusiasm rather than talent, a follower of recipes who somehow always ends up improvising at the crucial moment. The kitchen at Tunhovd, however, made me want to be better. Proper gas hob, decent knives, a view of the water through the window above the sink. I put the cabbage down with something approaching reverence and opened the cupboards to find the previous guests had left behind a nearly full jar of lingonberry jam and some mystery spice I still cannot identify.

That first evening, we made do. The cured meats were actually rather good, sliced thick and arranged on the wooden board we found in a drawer, accompanied by crackers that had survived the petrol station selection process. We ate on the deck as the light stretched long across the lake, that particular Scandinavian summer evening that makes midnight feel like a suggestion rather than a fact. My partner softened enough to admit the moose had been impressive. I did not mention that I had also nearly driven into a ditch.

Morning brought proper purpose. The local shop in Tunhovd village, we discovered, was a revelation in miniature. Stocked with the determined practicality of a community that knows precisely what it needs, it had local eggs with the feathers still stuck to some of them, proper brown cheese, and cloudberries in a jar that cost more than our petrol station entire shop. I bought them anyway. My partner, who is the sensible one, acquired potatoes and onions and something called "lutefisk" that we both looked at and silently returned to the shelf.

Breakfast that day became an event. I fried those eggs in butter until the edges went crispy in the Norwegian fashion I had read about somewhere, served them with thick slices of the brown cheese that my partner described as tasting like "caramel had a complicated past." We ate slowly, drinking coffee from the cabin's substantial mugs, planning our day around meals rather than activities. This, I realised, was the actual point of being here.

The following days developed a rhythm I have never quite managed at home. Morning trip to the shop or the slightly larger market in the next settlement, where I once bought reindeer meat from a woman who spoke excellent English and laughed openly at my pronunciation. Afternoon cooking that stretched into evening, attempts at proper Norwegian dishes that sometimes worked and sometimes became something else entirely. My fish soup, I maintain, was genuinely successful. My attempt at raspeballer, potato dumplings that dissolved into something more like porridge, remains a sensitive subject.

What I cooked mattered less than the cooking itself. Standing at that window, chopping vegetables while rain came across the lake in visible sheets, or while the midnight sun made everything golden and strange. The cabin had a proper dining table, and we used it for every meal, no television to distract us, just the food and the view and gradually, the conversation that comes when you are not rushing anywhere.

I think often now about that lost shopping list, fluttering into a Norwegian ditch somewhere near a moose. It forced a kind of attention I might otherwise have avoided, made me engage with what was actually there rather than what I had planned. The petrol station cabbage, incidentally, became a surprisingly decent slaw on our third night, dressed with the mystery spice and some of that excellent local vinegar. My partner took seconds. I felt, ridiculously, like I had won something.

We left the lingonberry jam for the next guests, and a note about the spice that admitted our ignorance. I have never been so reluctant to return a key.