I have to tell you about the time I tried to find a "Bjorli" and ended up in a right state. You see, I had booked this lovely looking cabin through Novasol, somewhere in Oppland, Norway, and I had it in my head that "Bjorli" was the name of the property itself. So there I was, driving my hire car from Lillehammer, squinting at road signs, getting increasingly panicked because I could not see a single sign pointing to "Bjorli the holiday home." It took a petrol stop and a very patient woman called Ingrid, who explained through my terrible Norwegian that Bjorli is actually the village, not the house, before the penny finally dropped. I felt like the world's biggest plonker, but Ingrid just laughed and said the British always do this, then drew me a map on the back of a receipt.

The cabin itself sits up in the hills near Bjorli village, surrounded by proper Norwegian wilderness, the kind that makes you feel simultaneously tiny and weirdly important. I arrived late afternoon, still smarting from my geographical humiliation, and was fumbling with the key box when a chap emerged from next door carrying a rake like it was an extension of his own arm. This was Gunnar, who turned out to be the sort of neighbour who knows everything about everything but pretends he does not.

"First time in Oppland?" he asked, though it was clearly not a question. Before I could properly answer, he was telling me about the cabin's previous occupants, a Danish couple who had tried to barbecue reindeer sausages in January and set off the smoke alarm so dramatically that the local fire brigade turned up. "They were nice people," he said, with the particular tone of someone who means they were deeply annoying.

Gunnar insisted on helping me with my bags, which I suspect was actually an excuse to inspect my packing. He was deeply unimpressed by my walking boots, which I thought were quite serious, and told me they were "city boots" with such finality that I did not argue. He then produced a flask of something that made my eyes water and declared it "good for the soul," which I am fairly certain is Norwegian for "this will strip paint."

The next morning I met Astrid, who runs the little shop in Bjorli village, population small enough that everyone definitely knows about my key box fumbling. She has the remarkable ability to conduct three conversations simultaneously while weighing cheese and keeping one eye on the weather. I made the mistake of asking if she had lived there long, and she fixed me with a look that suggested I had asked something incredibly stupid. "My grandmother was born in the house that burned down to build this shop," she said, then immediately asked if I knew how to cross-country ski. When I admitted I did not, she said, "Good, we need the entertainment," and sold me a map with several routes helpfully marked "not for beginners" in what I choose to believe was a joke.

What struck me most, wandering around that first day, was how these conversations kept happening without any of the usual British dance of politeness. People just spoke to you, properly, with actual opinions and stories and the occasional gentle mockery. A man called Leif, who I encountered attempting to free his truck from a snowdrift with what appeared to be pure stubbornness, spent twenty minutes explaining why Oppland was superior to every other Norwegian county while refusing any help whatsoever. "You will learn," he said, when I offered to push, "that some things must be done the hard way." He was not talking about the truck.

By evening, sitting in the cabin with its ridiculous view of snow-covered everything, I realised something slightly uncomfortable. I had come to Norway expecting solitude and silence, the romantic hermit experience, and instead I had stumbled into this web of personalities who seemed determined to include me in their world whether I liked it or not. There is something rather lovely about that, and something rather revealing about my own assumptions. I had packed books I intended to read alone, planned routes I would walk in determined isolation, and instead I was becoming that person who pops into Astrid's shop for no reason, who Gunnar waves at with what I choose to interpret as fondness rather than pity.

The cabin itself is comfortable in that unpretentious Scandinavian way, all wood and light and practical furniture, but honestly it is the people around it that I will remember. That first evening, Gunnar appeared again with a plate of something fish-based and unidentifiable, and we sat on his porch watching the light do that strange Norwegian thing where it lasts for hours without really becoming evening. He told me about his wife, who had died three years ago, and how she used to complain that he talked too much to tourists, and how he kept doing it because "someone has to make sure they do not get lost or set fire to things." I was not sure if this was a reference to the Danish sausage incident or a general comment on visitors, and I did not ask.

I am writing this on my third morning, having just returned from Astrid's shop where she has now decided I need to learn proper Norwegian coffee preparation and has lent me a contraption that looks medical. I still have not managed a full day without some human interaction, some small moment of connection that I did not plan for and could not have predicted. It is rather wonderful, and slightly exhausting, and nothing like the holiday I imagined.

I think that is rather the point.