I'd driven us halfway across southern Norway before realising I'd left the wellies on the front step back in Oslo. My wife gave me that look, the one that says "we've been married fourteen years and you still do this," while the kids found it absolutely hilarious. There we were, bound for a wooden cottage outside Treungen in Telemark, and I'd managed to forget the one item absolutely essential for a Norwegian lake holiday in autumn. Brilliant.

The journey from Oslo had been gorgeous though, I'll give it that. We wound through valleys where the birch trees were doing that proper golden thing, the kind of colour that makes you understand why people paint landscapes. The roads got narrower and narrower until we were basically following a single track through pine forest, my phone signal dying somewhere near Nissedal. I took this as a good sign. Proper escape territory.

Treungen itself appeared like someone had dropped a handful of wooden houses into a bowl of hills. It's not a big place, which suited us perfectly. We stopped at the local shop for supplies, me still muttering about the wellies, and bought bread that was still warm, some brown cheese the kids eyed suspiciously, and what I hoped was coffee. My Norwegian reading skills are basically "point and hope," though the shopkeeper was lovely and clearly used to hopeless Brits.

The final stretch to the cottage was down a gravel track that made our hire car sound like it was falling apart. Then suddenly there it was, red wooden walls, white trim, proper storybook stuff. The lake gleamed beyond it, absolutely still, with a little jetty and a rowboat tied up. My daughter actually gasped, which from an eleven-year-old is basically a standing ovation.

Getting inside involved the traditional holiday cottage fumble with the key box, me dropping the code printout in a puddle, my wife retrieving it with the patience of a saint. The door opened onto that particular smell of old wood and slightly damp wool and something else, something that just says "cabin." The kids shot upstairs to claim beds, which involved the usual negotiations and one dramatic flounce onto a mattress that turned out to be harder than expected.

I stood in the kitchen-living area and felt that lovely shift that happens when a place stops being "the rental" and starts becoming yours. The windows were small and deep-set, framing views of the lake like deliberate paintings. Someone had left a pack of cards on the table, slightly warped, clearly well-used. A proper previous-guests touch, not the sterile hotel thing.

My wife found the wood-burning stove and looked at me with actual delight. "We'll manage without wellies," she said, which was generous given I'd also forgotten to pack my own. The kids appeared from their reconnaissance mission reporting a "really cool" loft space and a bathroom with a shower that "works fine but makes a funny noise."

We unpacked badly, as families do, bags exploding across the floor. I made tea with a kettle that took approximately three geological ages to boil, and we sat on the slightly sagging sofa with our mugs, watching the light change over the water. The funny noise from the shower started up as someone investigated, then stopped, then started again with experimental purpose.

That first evening, we didn't do anything remarkable. Walked down to the jetty in our trainers, getting damp socks. Threw stones that went plop in the lake. My son tried to work out the rowboat ropes and got himself in a minor tangle I had to unknot. We saw a heron lift off from the reeds, absurd and elegant, and nobody spoke for a moment because it felt like that kind of moment.

Back inside, we got the stove going with wood from the covered pile outside, me making a hash of the first attempt and my wife taking over with the efficiency of someone who actually read the instructions. The warmth spread slowly, changing the whole feel of the room. We ate bread and cheese and some sausages I'd bought on a hopeful whim, cooked in a pan that had seen decades of similar meals.

I kept thinking about those wellies on the step in Oslo. Classic me, really, the organised-in-chaos type, always packing in a rush and forgetting the obvious. But sitting there with my family, socks drying on the stove rail, kids bickering gently over who got which bunk, I couldn't honestly say the holiday was worse for it. We'd adapt. We'd wear old trainers and get wet feet and laugh about it. That's the thing about cottage holidays, isn't it? They don't ask you to be perfect. They just ask you to show up, slightly disorganised, and settle in.

The darkness came properly around eight, earlier than back home, and the stars over that lake were something else entirely. No light pollution, just a ridiculous spill of them, more than I've seen in years. We stood outside in our coats, necks craned, while an owl did its business somewhere in the trees. My daughter took my hand, which she doesn't do much anymore, and I felt that particular ache of knowing these moments are precious and passing and absolutely worth the damp socks.

Tomorrow we'd figure out proper activities, maybe that rowboat properly, perhaps a walk to the nearest proper viewpoint. Tonight was just for arriving, for the lovely settling-in that makes the rest of the holiday possible. The stove crackled. The shower made its funny noise as someone had a final wash. I found an old book on the shelf, Norwegian detective fiction, and read the first page three times without taking it in, too tired, too content.

Treungen had us now. The wellies could wait.