I have never been more grateful for a thermos of tea than at half past six on a Tuesday morning, sat in a hire car outside a ferry terminal with no ferry in sight. The journey to Bomlo had already involved one missed connection in Bergen, a sat-nav that insisted the sea was a shortcut, and now this: a timetable I had misread by a full hour. I ate my squashed cheese sandwich in the drizzle and laughed at my own uselessness. Some people plan holidays with military precision. I appear to plan them with a blindfold and a dartboard.

When the ferry finally came and deposited me on Bomlo, the island sat grey-green and quiet under low clouds. My holiday home was a tidy wooden place near the water, the sort of modest Scandinavian cabin that makes you immediately conscious of your own clutter back home. I dumped my bags and did what any sensible person does after travel trauma: I went looking for food.

The local shop was a fifteen-minute walk, a compact supermarket with a surprisingly decent fish counter. I bought cod, new potatoes, and a tub of something labelled in Norwegian that I hoped was butter. It was not butter. It was some form of cultured spread with ambitions above its station. My first self-catering attempt that evening was edible but philosophically confused. The fish was perfectly fine, flaking white and sweet, but everything else on the plate seemed to question my life choices. I ate it looking out at the water, feeling smug about the view and slightly sorry for myself about the spread.

Morning brought better prospects. I had discovered a small farmers' market in a nearby village hall, open for a scant three hours on Wednesdays. The locals moved slowly between stalls, chatting in that unhurried way that makes a British person feel they have forgotten how to relax properly. I bought brown cheese, which I had promised myself I would try properly this time, and a jar of cloudberry jam from a woman who explained its virtues at length while I nodded and pretended my Norwegian extended beyond "takk" and "pardon". The brown cheese went into my basket with the optimism of the ignorant. I would come to respect it, though never truly love it. It is a cheese that demands something from you. Character, perhaps. Or stubbornness.

Back at the cabin, I cooked with renewed purpose. The kitchen was small but well-equipped in that sensible Nordic way, everything in its place, nothing superfluous. I made a fish soup with the remains of my market haul, fumbling with unfamiliar cream and wondering if I had the proportions right. It turned out thick and pale and surprisingly good, eaten at the small table with bread that was actually butter this time. I had bought proper butter. I was learning.

The highlight, though, was a meal I did not cook myself. A neighbour, spotting me struggling with the outdoor grill on my third evening, came over and silently took charge. He was a man of perhaps seventy, speaking limited English and unlimited patience. Together we grilled mackerel he had caught that morning, eaten with boiled potatoes and a simple dill sauce. He produced a flask of aquavit. We drank to something, I am not sure what. The fish tasted of smoke and salt and competence that was not my own.

I left Bomlo with my suitcase heavier than it arrived, packed with cloudberry jam, that stubborn brown cheese, and a new appreciation for letting strangers rescue your dinner. Some holidays teach you about landscapes. This one taught me that I am not as self-sufficient as I imagine, that good food often arrives through accident and kindness, and that reading ferry timetables correctly is a life skill I should probably prioritise. I ate well, eventually. And I have never tasted mackerel so fine as that evening, sat on a wooden deck, making conversation with a man whose name I never quite caught but whose aquavit I will remember forever.