The drive from Alesund to Volda was already doing me the world of good. I'd left behind the airport bustle, pointed my hire car east along the E39, and within half an hour found myself grinning like an idiot at fjord views that looked almost aggressively beautiful. You know the sort - mirror-calm water, mountains doing their best impression of a postcard, the odd red cabin clinging to a hillside. I kept thinking I should pull over for photos, then realising I'd never actually reach my destination if I stopped at every view.

Which brings me to the mishap. About twenty minutes out from Volda, I spotted what I was certain was the local supermarket and decided to stock up before arrival. Reversed into a parking space with the confidence of someone who'd been driving on the right for a whole two hours, opened the door with rather too much enthusiasm, and watched in slow motion as it bounced off the neighbouring bollard and sprang back toward my shin. No damage to the car, considerable damage to my dignity, and a packet of frozen fish cakes that I'd somehow contrived to drop underneath the vehicle. I fished them out, muttering apologies to no one in particular, and limped into the shop with what I hoped looked like a normal gait.

The cabin itself, when I finally found it, was perched above the village with that particular Norwegian talent for making practical things look effortless. Wooden, red-trimmed, surrounded by birch trees that caught the afternoon sun and turned everything golden. I dumped my bags with the theatrical exhaustion of someone who'd done very little actual work, made a cup of tea with the efficiency of a person who'd been fantasising about it for hours, and stepped onto the terrace.

And that was more or less it for the day. The sun had settled in, the fjord below was doing its shimmering routine, and I discovered that my ambitious plans for immediate hiking had evaporated completely. I sat. I read three pages of a novel and then read them again because I'd been staring at the water instead. A bee investigated my tea and thought better of it. Somewhere in the distance, a boat puttered along with the unhurried pace of someone who also had nowhere particular to be.

The following days developed a rhythm so gentle it barely qualified as rhythm. Morning coffee on the terrace, watching the light shift across the hillside. A stroll down to Volda itself - twenty minutes of winding road and wildflower verges - for provisions or simply to feel virtuous about the exercise. The village is small, unpretentious, the sort of place where the supermarket and the university coexist without fuss. I'd buy bread and cheese, perhaps something from the fish counter, and immediately abandon any notion of elaborate cooking in favour of assembling lunch and returning to my outdoor perch.

I did walk to the shore one afternoon, following a path that meandered through birch woodland before opening onto rocky coastline. Spent an hour there, maybe two, turning stones to watch small crabs scuttle indignantly back to shelter. Took my shoes off to paddle and yelped at the temperature with the performative surprise of someone who knew perfectly well Norwegian water would be freezing. Walked back slower, slightly sun-warmed, slightly smug.

The thing about doing very little in good weather is that it requires a particular surrender. I'd arrived with mental lists, the urban compulsion to optimise experience. The cabin and its setting gradually wore that down. Reading became actual reading rather than competitive consumption. Meals became events rather than interruptions. I found myself watching clouds with the sustained attention I usually reserve for deadlines, and with considerably more pleasure.

On my final morning, I packed with the reluctance of someone who'd finally achieved the holiday they'd actually needed rather than the one they'd planned. The frozen fish cakes, incidentally, remained excellent.