I should have known the sat nav was up to no good when it tried to send me through what looked like someone's beetroot patch. Three hours out of Warsaw, already slightly frazzled from a Ryanair seat that felt designed by a chiropractor with a grudge, and there I was arguing with a disembodied voice about whether this flooded track counted as a road. Spoiler: it did not. My hire car, a Fiat so small I could practically wear it, made a noise like a disgruntled guinea pig as I reversed back through the puddle. A man on a bicycle watched the whole performance without breaking stride, which in Masuria counts as a standing ovation.

The actual road to Czerwonki appeared ten minutes later, marked by a hand-painted sign that looked like it had been done during a power cut. I pulled up at the property - a proper wooden house with a steep roof and enough pine cladding to make a Scandinavian weep with envy - and was immediately intercepted by a woman emerging from next door. This was Halina. She spoke no English, I spoke no Polish beyond "dziekuje" and "piwo," and yet within four minutes she had established that I was single, that my mother worried about me, and that I definitely needed to eat something before I "became like the thin mosquitoes." She produced a jar of pickled mushrooms from her apron pocket as if this were perfectly normal. I accepted them like they were the Crown Jewels.

The key handover happened eventually, conducted by Halina's son Tomek, who drove up in a tractor that appeared to run on optimism rather than fuel. He explained, via Google Translate held at awkward angles, that the boiler required "talking to nicely" and that the neighbour across the lake was "not crazy, just Polish." This distinction seemed important. Tomek also mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that his uncle kept bees and that I should avoid wearing purple near the hives. I did not ask why. Some mysteries deserve respect.

By now a small crowd had assembled. An elderly man with eyebrows like angry caterpillars introduced himself as Pan Zbigniew and insisted on inspecting my car's tyres, declaring them "English" with a disapproving click of his tongue. I have no idea what this meant. He then produced a folding chair from nowhere and settled in to watch me unload my luggage, offering unsolicited commentary through Halina, who had appointed herself official translator. "He says you pack like a student. He says his granddaughter packs like this and she is twenty-three and not married." I nodded along, too tired to explain that my organisational skills had actually deteriorated since university.

The mishap, when it came, was spectacularly stupid. In my eagerness to appear competent, I had managed to lock myself out of the car with the engine running and my phone inside. The Fiat sat there purring smugly, headlights on, while I performed what can only be described as a despairing mime of human inadequacy. Halina found this hilarious. Tomek found it inevitable. Pan Zbigniew found it confirmation of his tyre-based suspicions. The solution involved a coat hanger, Tomek's "special tool" which looked suspiciously like a butter knife, and twenty minutes of collective effort that bonded us in ways I hadn't anticipated. When the door finally clicked open, Halina hugged me with genuine affection, and Pan Zbigniew gifted me a single boiled sweet from his pocket, presumably as a reward for providing entertainment.

As the light faded over the lake - and the lake was right there, properly spectacular, the kind of water that makes you understand why people paint landscapes - I stood on the wooden deck with my jar of mushrooms and my borrowed coat hanger and my single boiled sweet, listening to Halina and Pan Zbigniew argue about something that required much gesturing toward the sky. I understood none of it. I felt completely at home. Some holidays you plan for the scenery and accidentally collect people instead. This was already shaping up to be one of those.