I have never been so relieved to see a wooden veranda in my life. After six hours of driving north from Trondheim, my partner and I finally pulled up to our Steinkjer cottage in Beitstad, only to discover I had packed three left wellies and not a single right one. There I stood, ankle-deep in a puddle that I am fairly certain contained more sheep droppings than water, laughing like a drain while my children hid behind the car in embarrassment. Welcome to North Trondelag, I suppose.

The journey itself had been magnificent in that understated Norwegian way. We had wound through forests so thick with pine that the light turned greenish, crossed bridges over water so still it looked like someone had laid sheets of grey glass across the valleys. My youngest had spent forty minutes convinced that every rocky outcrop was a troll, and my eldest had perfected the art of sighing dramatically whenever we spotted another red-painted barn. By the time we reached Beitstad, tucked along the inner fjord waters, I had eaten an entire packet of knekkebrod and developed an unhealthy attachment to a particular sheep we kept seeing on the roadside.

The cottage sat low against the hillside, white clapboard with that traditional red trim you see everywhere in these parts. What struck me first was the quiet. Not the uncomfortable, oppressive quiet of an empty house, but the kind that feels like it has been waiting for you. A pair of oystercatchers were having what sounded like a marital dispute down by the shore, and somewhere in the distance a tractor chugged along with that unhurried rhythm that tells you nobody is rushing anywhere today.

I abandoned my soggy sock and hopped inside on one foot, which is not how I recommend making a first impression on a holiday let. The interior smelled of pine and something else I could not place, something clean and cold like stone that has never known central heating. The kitchen had that practical, no-nonsense layout that Scandinavian cottages do so well, everything within arm's reach, nothing merely decorative. My daughter immediately claimed the small bedroom with the sloped ceiling, declaring it her "nordic princess tower," which was generous given that she could touch both walls simultaneously if she stretched.

My partner, ever the practical one, had already started investigating the wood-burning stove with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb. There is something deeply satisfying about these simple systems, I find. No smart thermostats, no apps, just dry birch, a box of matches, and the very real possibility of filling the room with smoke if you get the draft wrong. We managed it eventually, after one false start that had us opening every window and waving a tea towel about like absolute amateurs.

By late afternoon, the light had turned that particular pale gold you only get in northern latitudes, stretching long across the water. I sat on that veranda with a cup of coffee that tasted better than it had any right to, my damp sock drying on the railing beside me like a tiny flag of surrender. The children had disappeared down to the shoreline, returning periodically with pockets full of stones and increasingly elaborate lies about what they had discovered.

I watched a fishing boat putter past, heading toward the Beitstadfjorden, and felt something in my shoulders release that I had not realised I was holding. This is what we had come for, I thought. Not adventure, not spectacle, just this ordinary, extraordinary stillness. The chance to be somewhere where the biggest crisis of the day had been my own incompetence with footwear.

Tomorrow we might walk the coastal path, or perhaps drive into Steinkjer proper for supplies and a wander. But for now, I was perfectly content to sit with my coffee, listen to the oystercatchers reconcile their differences, and accept that I would be wearing borrowed boots until we found a shop. Some holidays begin with champagne and sunsets. Ours began with a puddle and a single wet foot. I would not have had it any other way.