The thing about driving through Hordaland is that you genuinely forget how many tunnels Norway contains. We'd been through three already, my partner navigating while I gripped the steering wheel and tried to look confident, when my daughter piped up from the back asking if we were nearly there. "Almost," I said, for the fourth time. Then the sat nav announced we had arrived, and I promptly missed the turning because I was too busy pointing out a particularly handsome fjord view to everyone. We ended up on a narrow track leading to what I can only describe as someone's very private boat shed. Reversing back up took fifteen minutes of mutual silent frowning and one small argument about whose side the ditch was on.

When we finally found the proper entrance to our place in Masfjorden, I felt that lovely shift that happens when a holiday actually begins. The cottage sat there looking terribly pleased with itself, all wooden cladding and a view straight across the water that made me want to sit down immediately and do absolutely nothing. My son, who had spent the entire journey complaining about his tablet battery, actually stopped mid-moan and said "oh." That is high praise from a twelve-year-old.

The first job was always going to be the grand tour, which in a Norwegian cottage means working out which switch does what and marvelling at the efficiency of everything. The kitchen had that satisfying Scandinavian practicality, the sort where you open a drawer and think "ah, yes, that is exactly where the cheese grater should live." I made us all tea using a kettle I initially failed to switch on properly, which my partner found hilarious and I found character-building. We stood on the little terrace with our mugs, watching the light change on the fjord, and I had one of those moments where you realise how much of ordinary life is just noise. The previous month had been all deadlines and school runs and remembering to buy milk. Here, the most pressing concern was whether to light the wood burner now or after dinner.

The children disappeared to investigate the bedrooms, which led to the inevitable negotiation about who got which bed. My daughter claimed the one with the window overlooking the water, citing maritime heritage she does not possess. My son took the other without complaint, which made me suspicious. Later I found him sitting on it, quietly pleased with the small shelf perfect for his collection of inexplicable rocks.

I had grand plans for that first evening, naturally. We would walk down to the water's edge, perhaps, or explore the immediate surroundings with the energy of people who have been cooped up in a car. Instead, we sat around the kitchen table eating bread and cheese from a local shop we'd found near the E39, playing a card game with rules none of us could properly remember. Someone won twice in a row and was accused of cheating. It was all deeply unremarkable and exactly what we needed.

As the light faded, I stepped outside alone for a moment. The air had that clean coldness that feels like it is doing you good whether you like it or not. Across the fjord, lights from a handful of other houses appeared, and I thought about how people live here year-round, with this extraordinary ordinary beauty as their daily backdrop. I am someone who checks work emails on holiday, who makes lists of things to achieve even when supposedly relaxing. Standing there, I felt the familiar tug of "should be doing something" and, for once, let it go. The wood burner was calling, and my family were laughing about something inside, and the fjord was not going anywhere.

We went to bed early, tired in that honest way that comes from travelling and fresh air and doing very little of consequence. I fell asleep listening to water lapping somewhere nearby, thinking that perhaps the best holidays are not the ones where you see everything, but the ones where you finally stop trying to.