The drive from Oslo to Tuddal was meant to take three hours, which in my optimistic brain translated to "two and a bit if I really commit." I committed, alright. Committed to missing the turning for the E134 and ending up down some farm track where a very patient sheep stared at me until I reversed back out. By the time I pulled up at the cabin, my hire car looked like it had done a rally stage and I had eaten an entire packet of liquorice allsorts in stress.

First impressions of the place, though? Worth every wrong turn. The cabin sat there with its proper timber cladding and that red paint that somehow looks exactly right against pine trees and grey Norwegian sky. I stepped out and immediately smelled woodsmoke from somewhere nearby, which did that thing to my stomach where it realises it has been fed nothing but petrol station snacks for five hours.

The kitchen was the star before I had even unpacked my socks. Proper gas hob, not one of those ceramic jobs that takes three geological ages to boil water. Big windows above the sink looking out towards Gaustatoppen, which I later learned is that mountain everyone photographs. At that moment I was more interested in the fridge, which was empty and waiting, and the cupboards which held actual decent knives. I have stayed in enough self-catering places to know that "fully equipped kitchen" often means two forks and a blunt bread knife that has seen things. This was different. Someone who cooks had stocked this place.

I had planned to be organised about food. Had a list and everything, written in proper handwriting at home. The list was in my other jacket, naturally. So my first evening became a scavenge of what I had actually bought versus what I thought I had bought. Turns out I had four packs of smoked salmon, some brown cheese I grabbed because the packaging looked interesting, and a jar of something pickled that I could not identify even with my phone translator. No bread. No milk. No actual plan.

I made it work. The salmon went on crackers I found in the car door pocket, the brown cheese got melted onto whatever those crackers were, and I sat on the deck with my strange Norwegian ploughman's and a beer, watching the light do that endless summer evening thing where it never quite gets dark. It felt like cheating at being on holiday, eating this odd meal in this perfect quiet.

The next morning I found the local shop in Tuddal village, which is basically a shed that happens to sell excellent provisions. The woman running it spoke English better than I do and took pity on my breakfast situation. She sold me proper bread, not the sliced white I had been surviving on, and some local eggs with feathers still stuck to them. I also bought cloudberry jam because she said I should, and when a Norwegian shopkeeper tells you to buy something, you buy it. That is the law.

Back at the cabin I attempted proper cooking. The hob roared to life, the eggs fried beautifully in butter I had remembered to buy, and I made coffee in the stovetop pot I found in a cupboard. Sitting there with my breakfast, the jam so tart it made my eyes water, I felt briefly like someone who has their life together. The feeling lasted until I tried to make brown cheese sauce later that evening and created something that looked like burnt caramel and tasted like regret.

I ate it anyway. Waste not, want not, and all that.

The cabin had a barbecue outside, one of those kettle affairs, and I became slightly obsessed with it. Bought local pork sausages from the shop, some reindeer ones too because when in Rome, and spent an embarrassing amount of time getting the coals just right. There is something deeply satisfying about cooking outside with mountain air and the sound of a stream nearby. Even when the sausages split and the fat caused a flare-up that took my eyebrows a moment to recover from.

By day four I had a routine. Morning coffee watching the mist lift off the hills, breakfast of that incredible bread with cloudberry jam, then a walk to build an appetite for whatever I had planned for the evening. I tried making fish soup from a recipe I found in a drawer, written in Norwegian and German and something I think was Danish. Google Translate turned "cream" into "sour cream" and the result was... educational. I ate it for two days because I had made enough for eight people and refused to admit defeat.

The local shop got to know me. I started buying less randomly and more with intention. Proper ingredients for proper meals. On my last evening I cooked a simple piece of trout, just butter and lemon and dill, with boiled potatoes from a farm I had passed. It was not fancy. It was not ambitious. It was probably the best thing I ate all week because by then I had slowed down enough to actually taste it.

I left the remaining cloudberry jam in the cupboard for the next person, along with the pickled mystery jar which I never did identify. Some holiday traditions should be passed on.