I should have known the holiday was going to be characterful when I got off the ferry at Engeloya and immediately dropped my rucksack into a puddle. Not just any puddle, mind you. A puddle that turned out to be considerably deeper than it looked, swallowing my left boot and my dignity in one cold gulp. A chap leaning against the ferry terminal wall, smoking something that smelled of bog myrtle and mischief, watched this unfold with the patient amusement of someone who'd seen many southerners arrive and flounder.

"First time on the island?" he asked, though it clearly wasn't a question needing an answer.

His name was Leif, and he turned out to be the sort of person who simply materialises in places without anyone quite remembering when he arrived. He helped me haul my bag onto dry ground, then insisted on carrying it halfway to the cottage because, as he put it, "You've got wet foot. In Norway, wet foot is serious business." I tried to explain that I had spare socks, but Leif waved this away as irrelevant. "Socks," he said, with the weight of ancient wisdom, "are not the point."

The cottage itself sat perched above a bay that looked almost indecently picturesque, the sort of view that makes you suspect Photoshop even when you're standing right in front of it. I was still gawping at it when a woman emerged from the neighbouring house, carrying what appeared to be an entire salmon in each hand.

"You're the English," she announced. Not a question either. "I'm Ingrid. I bake bread and I know things." This seemed a fair introduction, so I nodded politely. She thrust a salmon at me. "From Leif's brother. You can't visit without fish. It's regulation."

I spent my first evening attempting to cook this salmon while Ingrid sat at my kitchen table, unprompted, explaining the complex social dynamics of Engeloya. "Leif," she said, "tells everyone he's retired. He's not retired. He just stopped doing the things he didn't like and kept doing the drinking and the interfering." She said this with evident fondness. "He helped build that extension on the cottage, you know. In 1987. He's still mentioning it."

The next morning I met the third member of what I was beginning to understand was a local triumvirate. Gunnar appeared while I was attempting to understand the wood-burning stove, which seemed to require a specific sequence of gestures and possibly a blood sacrifice. He was seventy-ish, wearing a jumper that had clearly been knitted by someone who loved him but perhaps didn't measure him first. The sleeves reached his knees.

"You're doing it wrong," he said, without introduction. "Everyone does it wrong first. Then they learn, or they freeze." He demonstrated the correct method with the efficiency of long practice, then settled into the armchair as if he'd been expecting it. "Ingrid says you're writing things down. Don't write down my name. I've got enough trouble."

I hadn't actually been writing anything down, but I didn't correct him. Gunnar, it emerged, had "retired" three times from various fishing-related enterprises, each retirement lasting approximately six months before boredom or financial necessity drew him back. "The fish don't care if you're retired," he observed. "They just keep swimming about, being inconvenient."

By my third day, I'd developed an odd rhythm with these unexpected visitations. Leif would appear with unsolicited advice about weather, delivered with the confidence of someone who'd never checked a forecast in his life. Ingrid would bring bread and local gossip, treating both with equal seriousness. Gunnar would materialise whenever I attempted anything practical, correcting my technique with a mixture of patience and barely concealed despair.

I found myself looking forward to these interruptions more than the solitude I'd originally booked. There's something about being adopted by people who expect nothing from you except occasional amusement at your incompetence. I mentioned this to Ingrid, who snorted. "We don't adopt," she said. "We just can't stop ourselves interfering. It's the island. Too small for boundaries."

On my final morning, Leif walked with me to the ferry, carrying my bag again out of what I now understood to be stubborn principle rather than necessity. "You'll come back," he said. Not a question, of course. "Next time, bring better boots. And don't pretend you know about fish. We can tell."

I watched Engeloya shrink behind the ferry, already wondering when I might return to be told what I was doing wrong, and to eat more salmon than any reasonable person should consume, and to sit in kitchens while people who barely knew me explained exactly who they were and how things worked around here. The puddle had been a warning, I realised. Not about wet feet. About getting in deeper than you expected, and not minding one bit.