I should have known the holiday had truly begun when I managed to leave my boots on the roof of the car at the ferry terminal. There I was, frantically patting down every pocket in my coat while my other half stood with that particular expression of long-suffering patience, pointing silently upward. The boots had enjoyed a lovely view of Boknafjord for a good ten minutes before I noticed. Welcome to Rogaland, I thought. Already off to a flying start.

The drive from Haugesund had been spectacular enough to make me forgive myself, winding through landscapes that seemed almost aggressively picturesque. Every bend in the road revealed another fjord view, another cluster of red wooden houses clinging to hillsides, another moment where I declared we simply must stop for a photograph. My family, by the third such declaration, had perfected a collective groan that harmonised rather beautifully with the car engine.

Arriving at the cottage in Vikebygd felt like stepping into one of those photographs. The place sat nestled into the hillside with that particular Scandinavian confidence, all clean lines and sensible practicality, yet somehow still managing to look like it belonged in a tourism brochure. I stood in the gravel driveway, boots now firmly on feet, and just breathed in that air. You know the sort. The kind that makes you realise your lungs have been operating at reduced capacity your entire life.

The first job, naturally, was to investigate the fjord access. The property description had mentioned it, but there's a difference between reading "fjord nearby" and actually standing on a rocky shoreline with the water stretching out before you like something from a Viking saga. My youngest immediately began a passionate campaign for swimming, apparently undeterred by the temperature or the fact that penguins would have considered it brisk. We compromised on stone-skimming, which I proved embarrassingly bad at despite my confident claims of childhood expertise.

Inside, the cottage had that wonderful holiday-home smell of wood and slightly damp wool and possibility. The kitchen was immediately commandeered for tea-making, because we are British and this is how we process new environments. I pottered about opening cupboards with the nosiness of someone who absolutely will judge a property by its saucepan selection. They passed, I'm pleased to report. Good weight to them. A pan you could respect.

The evening brought that particular northern light that seems to last forever, painting everything in shades of gold and pink that made even my terrible photography look almost intentional. We sat on the terrace with our mugs, watching a heron work its way along the shoreline with the methodical patience I wished I possessed. My other half observed that I had been still for nearly five minutes, a personal record apparently worthy of note.

What struck me most, I think, was the quiet. Not silence exactly, because there was birdsong and water and the distant hum of a boat somewhere, but the absence of that particular urban frequency that buzzes in your bones without your noticing. I found myself speaking more softly without meaning to, as if the landscape had gently suggested I might pipe down a bit.

The boots, incidentally, are now drying by the door where they belong. I check on them periodically, like a slightly anxious parent. Some lessons, it seems, need repeating before they truly stick.