I have never been so grateful for a sat nav's patience as I was driving to our cottage in Ronneby. There we were, my family and I, cruising through the gorgeous Blekinge countryside with its endless pine forests and glimpses of the archipelago, when I spotted what I was certain was our turning. "This is it," I announced with the confidence of a man who had done absolutely no research. The sat nav made a small disapproving noise, which I ignored. We bumped down a gravel track for a good ten minutes before arriving at what was definitely someone's private summer house, complete with a very confused-looking man in his pants watering his tomatoes. I reversed with what dignity I could muster while my children provided a running commentary from the back seat. The actual cottage, when we finally found it, sat tucked among birch trees with a view I immediately decided was worth every mortifying second.

The property had that lovely lived-in feel you want from a family holiday let, not the sterile show-home atmosphere that makes you afraid to sit down. My daughter claimed the loft bedroom before her brother had even unbuckled his seatbelt, which led to a negotiation process that would have impressed the United Nations. I busied myself with the important task of locating the kettle and assessing biscuit proximity. The kitchen opened onto a wooden deck where a barbecue sat waiting, already picturing the sausages I would inevitably cremate later in the week.

What struck me most was the quiet. Not the uncomfortable silence of somewhere too posh to relax, but the genuine hush of a place where nature does the talking. Birds everywhere, obviously. I am no twitcher, but even I found myself pointing out woodpeckers to the children with an authority I absolutely did not possess. The garden sloped gently down toward trees, and beyond them you could just catch the shimmer of water on a good day. We spent that first afternoon doing precisely nothing organised, which felt like the entire point. The kids disappeared into some elaborate game involving sticks and a perceived enemy invasion, while my partner and I sat on weathered wooden chairs with cups of tea that went cold because we kept forgetting to drink them.

I had packed with the enthusiasm of someone escaping civilisation for a month, despite this being a week-long break. The cottage had everything we needed, which made my three different torches feel particularly foolish. There is something humbling about overpreparing for wilderness and discovering excellent WiFi and a dishwasher. Still, I told myself, the torches might come in handy for atmospheric evening walks to the lake. My family did not contradict this fantasy, which I appreciated.

By evening, the mishap of our arrival had already become family legend. "Remember when Dad kidnapped us to the tomato man's house?" my son asked, as if this had been a deliberate detour. We walked down to the nearby shoreline as the light went golden, the kind of Scandinavian summer evening that stretches forever and makes you forget what time even means. The water was calm enough to mirror the sky, and someone had left a small rowing boat pulled up on the rocks. We did not take it out, obviously. That would require coordination we did not possess after a day of driving and mild trauma. But we stood there, slightly mosquito-bitten and entirely content, watching the slow fade of another perfect Blekinge day.

I am already planning our return, though I will be triple-checking the directions. Some lessons, it turns out, you only need to learn once.