I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Skanevikstrand in Etne, Hordaland, proved me absolutely right. We had been driving from Bergen for what felt like several geological ages, winding through fjord country with the kind of scenery that makes you forget you are supposed to be steering. My partner was navigating, which in our relationship means holding a phone and making confident noises while I take wrong turns and silently resent her. Somewhere near the village of Fjaera, she announced we needed petrol, and I, in my wisdom, decided we could make it. We could not make it. The engine coughed its last on a hillside so steep I genuinely considered getting out and pushing the car to the nearest farm to ask for help in my appalling Norwegian. A kind man with a tractor appeared as if summoned by the gods of holiday misfortune, and forty minutes later we were refuelled, humbled, and only slightly late for our key collection.

The approach to Skanevikstrand itself almost made the petrol debacle worthwhile. The road drops down through birch and pine, and suddenly there is the Hardangerfjord stretching before you, that particular milky turquoise that looks almost artificial, like someone has been at it with a filter. Our holiday home sat perched above the water, a traditional wooden place with a deck that practically begged for a cup of tea and several hours of absolutely nothing. I had packed four novels, which my partner considered excessive until she saw the view and immediately understood my intentions.

That first afternoon, we did not explore. We did not hike. We did not seek out cultural experiences or photograph churches. We sat on that deck in sunshine so warm and unexpected that I kept checking my weather app for the catch. There was no catch. Just light on water, the occasional fishing boat puttering past, and the slow realisation that I had been running on empty for months without noticing. I read perhaps three pages of my first novel before dozing off with it on my chest, waking to find my partner had done exactly the same. We were two middle-aged people having an accidental nap in full view of one of Norway's most beautiful fjords, and I have rarely felt more content.

The days that followed settled into a rhythm so gentle it barely qualified as rhythm. Morning coffee on the deck, watching mist lift from the water like a stage curtain rising. A stroll down to the small harbour at Skanevikstrand, where locals nodded at us with the tolerant acceptance of people who see plenty of summer visitors and have long since stopped being either welcoming or hostile. We bought prawns from a fisherman one morning and ate them with our fingers on the rocks, the sun warm on our backs, the fjord doing that glittering thing it does so well.

I did attempt one proper walk, up behind the property on a path that promised views and delivered them, though I turned back sooner than planned when my fitness proved embarrassing. The thing about doing very little is that it quickly becomes habit-forming. I found myself actively resisting suggestions of driving to see a waterfall or visiting a stave church. Not today, I would say, as if I were a local with infinite time rather than someone with seven precious days. My partner, converted to laziness with impressive speed, would simply refill her coffee and return to her book.

On our final morning, I sat alone on the deck at six, the sun already high, a copy of a novel I had not finished spread open on my lap. A heron lifted from the shoreline, slow and deliberate, and I thought about the petrol panic, the kindness of strangers, the peculiar guilt I had felt at first about doing so little. That guilt had dissolved somewhere around day three, replaced by something harder to name. Contentment, perhaps, or just the simple animal pleasure of warmth and quiet and time stretching ahead with no demands. We packed the car with heavy reluctance, drove away without running out of fuel, and I have thought of that deck, that sunshine, that glorious nothing, on almost every stressful day since.