The drive from Oslo to Treungen had been going suspiciously well, which in my experience is always a warning sign. Three hours of pine forests and glassy lakes, my partner navigating while I smugly declared we'd "beaten the sat nav" - right up until we missed the final turning and found ourselves on a gravel track that grew narrower, steeper, and increasingly hostile to the concept of a hire car with fully comprehensive insurance.

"We're definitely close," I announced, as a sheep regarded us with what I can only describe as professional disappointment.

Twenty minutes of reversing, one minor argument about whose fault this was (mine, obviously), and a helpful wave from a man on a tractor later, we finally spotted the red wooden house perched above the lake. The NOVASOL property sat there like something from a tourism brochure we'd accidentally wandered into - weathered clapboard, white trim, and a view across Nisser that made me forget entirely about my white-knuckled steering.

The key was in the lockbox, which I fumbled with for an embarrassing length of time while my partner unloaded the shopping. Inside smelled of pine and something faintly vanilla, like the previous guests had baked biscuits and the house had decided to keep the memory. The kitchen had that satisfying Scandinavian practicality - everything where you'd expect it, nothing fussy. I immediately opened the wrong cupboard looking for glasses, because some instincts travel with you.

We'd brought books. This was, in retrospect, the entire plan. My stack included a detective novel I'd been carrying since March, a collection of essays about nothing in particular, and something literary I'd pretend to read while actually napping. My partner had two gardening books and a crossword puzzle book she'd never admit to enjoying.

The first morning, I woke to light pouring through curtains I'd forgotten to close. The lake was doing that thing where it looks solid enough to walk on, mist rising in strips like someone was slowly peeling the surface away. I made coffee in the small pot, got the ratio wrong twice because Norwegian measurements and my brain don't cohabit well before nine, and took it to the wooden deck.

Here is what we did that first day: read, walked to the water's edge, read, made sandwiches with brunost we'd bought in a panic at a petrol station, read, discussed whether to have a fire in the evening, decided against it because effort, read until the light went strange and golden.

The second day we walked to the village, if you can call twenty minutes of gentle strolling a walk. Treungen itself is barely there in the best way - a handful of houses, a shop with surprisingly good coffee, that sense of having reached somewhere the world hasn't quite found. We bought more bread than two people need and sat on a bench watching a dog that was definitely not stray but had the confidence of one.

Someone had told us about a swimming spot. We found it by following a path that started purposeful and became speculative, ending at rocks flat enough for towels and water cold enough to make my shriek embarrassingly audible. I swam for approximately forty seconds, declared it "invigorating," and spent the next hour drying in sun that felt personally addressed to me.

The books progressed slowly. This was the point. My detective novel's murderer remained at large for days. My partner completed three crossword puzzles and denied all of them. We cooked simple things - fish from the local shop, potatoes, tomatoes that actually tasted of something. The evenings stretched long, that northern light refusing to quit, and we sat with wine going warm because we'd forgotten to bring it inside and couldn't be bothered to move.

On our final morning, I packed with the lazy reluctance of someone who has remembered how to do nothing and isn't sure they want to relearn anything else. The sheep was back, or possibly a different sheep with the same expression. I waved anyway, a small gesture of solidarity between creatures who understand that some wrong turns lead exactly where you needed to be.