I should have known the holiday had truly begun when I managed to leave my walking boots on the ferry from Sandefjord. There they sat, bold as brass, in the boot of the car while I stood on deck in my socks, wondering why my feet felt so oddly free. My wife found it less amusing than I did, particularly as I'd spent the previous evening lecturing everyone on the importance of proper footwear for a Norwegian mountain holiday. Still, we pressed on. Tuddal awaited, and I had a pair of trainers that would simply have to do.

The drive from the coast took us through countryside that seemed to grow more impossibly scenic with every mile. Telemark unfolded like one of those glossy brochures you flick through in the dentist, except nobody had Photoshopped the colours. Deep green forests, lakes so still they looked like spilled ink, and the occasional red wooden house perched on a hillside as if placed there by a particularly tasteful giant. The children stopped bickering in the back, which I took as a genuine measure of natural beauty.

We found the lane leading to our cottage without too much trouble, though I did insist on following the satnav down what turned out to be someone's rather private driveway. A friendly wave from a man splitting logs sent us back the right way, my dignity slightly splintered. The proper track wound upward through birch trees, the gravel crunching satisfyingly beneath the tyres, until suddenly there it was: our Tuddal cabin, red-painted and white-trimmed, sitting in a clearing with the confidence of a building that knows exactly how picturesque it is.

I will confess to a small lump in my throat. There is something almost impossibly charming about these Norwegian holiday cottages, and this one delivered in spades. The grass around it was that particular shade of green that only seems to exist in places with proper winters and genuine rainfall. A wooden deck wrapped around one side, furnished with simple chairs that invited immediate occupation. Through the trees, I caught glimpses of the lake below, and beyond that, the faintest suggestion of mountains hazy in the distance.

The key was exactly where promised, in a little lockbox that required the code I'd screenshot on my phone back in Dorset and promptly forgotten. Three attempts and some muttering later, the door swung open and that distinctive cabin smell enveloped us: wood, slightly damp wool, and the ghost of a thousand previous holidays. The children bolted past me to claim bedrooms, a ritual as old as family travel itself. I lingered in the living area, taking in the simple wooden furniture, the wood-burning stove that would doubtless become the evening's focal point, and the windows framing views that no interior designer could improve upon.

My wife appeared from the kitchen area, brandishing a kettle and looking pleased. "Proper coffee maker," she announced, as if this single appliance justified the entire journey. I joined her at the counter, and together we stood in that comfortable silence of people who have arrived somewhere that feels immediately right.

I stepped onto the deck in my trainers, the ones that had caused such morning amusement, and felt the afternoon sun warm on my face. A bird called from the birch trees, something unfamiliar and rather lovely. Below, the lake glittered. My boots were two hundred kilometres away on a ferry, and I found I couldn't care less.