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 near Aviemore.

The drive from Oslo to Sjusjoen had been straightforward enough, or so I thought. I had packed with the confidence of a man who had watched one YouTube video about Norwegian winter driving. My hire car was allegedly equipped for snow. What they did not mention was that my interpretation of "equipped" and a Norwegian mountain pass's interpretation were two entirely different concepts. Halfway up a particularly spiteful incline, my rear wheels decided they had better things to do than grip tarmac. I slid backwards for what felt like a fortnight, ending up diagonally across the road with my hazard lights blinking pathetically and my dignity in tatters.

A pickup truck appeared within minutes, because of course it did. Out stepped Gunnar, who looked approximately seventy, wore a woollen jumper that had seen better decades, and spoke English with the lazy precision of someone who had learned it watching BBC World Service in the eighties. He did not ask if I needed help. He simply attached a tow rope, pulled me onto level ground, and said, "You have summer tyres." I started to explain about the hire company. He held up a hand. "I did not ask whose fault." Then he laughed, a sound like gravel in a cement mixer, and told me to follow him to Sjusjoen.

We arrived at the cabin compound as darkness was settling in, that particular Norwegian darkness that feels thick and deliberate. Gunnar introduced me to his wife, Inger, who was sweeping snow from a path with the focused aggression of someone who had personally offended her. She looked me up and down, noted my still-shaking hands, and declared that I would need aquavit before I would need my luggage. This was not a suggestion.

The cabin itself was exactly what I needed without knowing I needed it. Proper timber walls, a wood-burning stove that Inger immediately took charge of, and a view of snow-covered pines that made my earlier terror feel almost worthwhile. Almost. Gunnar showed me how to operate the stove with the patience of a man who had shown hundreds of incompetent tourists the same thing. "You will forget," he said, "and then you will call me. Everyone calls me." He wrote his number on a piece of wood with a carpenter's pencil. I have it still.

That first evening, I sat in their kitchen while Inger produced meatballs and potatoes with the casual efficiency of someone who could have done it blindfolded. Their neighbour, a younger man named Erik who apparently smelled cooking from three cabins away, wandered in without knocking. He was building a new sauna, he announced, though his definition of "building" seemed to involve mostly standing in the snow with a thermos and contemplating the foundations. He had been contemplating for three weeks. Inger said he was lazy. Gunnar said he was thoughtful. Erik said he was waiting for the ground to tell him where the sauna wanted to go. I could not tell if this was philosophy or procrastination.

By the time I stumbled back to my own cabin, slightly aquavit-happy and enormously fed, I realised something. I had arrived embarrassed and frightened, convinced I had made a catastrophic error. Instead I had been folded into something without asking, without earning it really, by people who treated my incompetence as a mild amusement rather than an intrusion. The stove was warm. The snow had stopped. Somewhere Erik was probably still contemplating his sauna.

I fell asleep wondering if the ground would ever speak to him, and hoping I might be there when it did.