I have never been brilliant with directions, which is how I ended up driving our hire car down what I can only describe as a glorified sheep track somewhere west of Stavanger, convinced I was taking a shortcut to Sirevag. My partner sat in the passenger seat making that particular face he does when he is trying very hard not to say "I told you so." The sat nav had given up on us entirely, emitting only a sad little bloop before falling silent. Somewhere in the distance, a fjord glinted mockingly.

Three hours earlier we had landed at Stavanger Airport, collected our bags, and immediately celebrated our Norwegian adventure with overpriced sandwiches and coffee that tasted of airport hopelessness. The drive south along the E39 was properly spectacular though, all granite cliffs and sudden glimpses of water that made me gasp embarrassingly every ten minutes. Rogaland does this to you. The landscape refuses to let you be cynical.

We found the proper road eventually, after a tense reversal past some very judgmental-looking sheep. The lane to our holiday home wound through low heather and scattered birch trees, the kind of terrain that makes you feel you have wandered into a particularly tasteful Scandinavian crime drama, minus the actual murder. Sea air pushed through the open window, carrying that clean, cold smell that immediately makes a Londoner suspect something has gone terribly right with the world.

The house sat modest and red against the green-grey surroundings, a traditional wooden place with white trim and that particular settled-in look of somewhere that has witnessed decades of family holidays. I had worried it might feel too isolated, too far from anything resembling civilisation. Instead, standing there with my ridiculous oversized suitcase and slightly crumpled dignity, I felt something unexpected loosen in my chest.

The key was exactly where the property details said it would be, which felt like a small miracle given my navigational performance. The door opened with a satisfying weight, and we stepped into warmth and the faint scent of pine. Whoever had prepared the place had left the heating on low, a thoughtful touch that nearly made me weep with gratitude after my sheep-track ordeal.

The living area was simple and unpretentious, wooden floors worn soft by years of sandy feet, windows framing a view of rocky shoreline that made me forget entirely about unpacking. I walked straight to the glass like a sleepwalker, pressed my forehead against it like a child at an aquarium. The North Sea stretched out there, grey and restless and absolutely magnificent.

My partner found the kitchen first, because his priorities have always been correctly ordered. He emerged holding a packet of coffee left by the owners, grinning like he had discovered buried treasure. We stood there in our coats, clutching mugs of surprisingly decent instant coffee, watching the light change over the water and not saying much of anything. Sometimes silence between two people is just companionable. Sometimes it is the particular quiet of realising you have made exactly the right choice, even if you took the wrong road to get there.

I thought about that wrong road later, as we finally unpacked and I discovered I had packed three pairs of jeans and no proper waterproof trousers. The sheep had been right to judge me. But standing in that warm house with the sea right there, visible even from the bedroom window, I could not bring myself to regret a single wrong turn.