The thing about driving to Dalarna is that you convince yourself the scenery will make up for the six hours behind the wheel. And it does, mostly, until you realise your satnav has developed what I can only describe as a Swedish death wish and sent you down a gravel track that peters out into someone's birch forest. There I was, bumping along in my hire car, absolutely certain I was having an authentic wilderness moment, until a very patient woman in wellies emerged from a red wooden house and explained, in flawless English, that I had missed the turning by approximately two kilometres and also that her dog was not for sale, despite my enthusiastic pointing.

I had been aiming for Aelvdalen, a holiday property near the village of Alvdalen, and after a slightly red-faced reverse manoeuvre that involved negotiating with a very judgmental-looking sheep, I finally found the proper lane. The house sat among proper forest, the kind that makes you feel immediately smaller and slightly more virtuous about your life choices. Red paint, white trim, the whole traditional Dalarna package. I stepped out of the car and promptly went arse-over-tit on a patch of ice I had somehow failed to notice in my triumph at arriving alive. The sheep, I felt, would have approved.

The owner had left the key in a wooden box with a combination lock, which I fumbled with for an embarrassingly long time given the code was simply the year the house was built. Inside, the smell hit first: wood and something faintly citrus from the cleaning products, plus that particular stillness of a place that has been waiting empty. I stood in the hallway with my ridiculous wheeled suitcase, suddenly aware that I had packed for approximately three climates and none of them correct. The house was warm, at least, the underfloor heating doing heavy lifting against the October chill I had brought in with me.

The kitchen window looked directly onto trees and nothing else. I made tea with the kind of concentration usually reserved for surgery, still slightly shaken from my gravel-track odyssey and my unscheduled introduction to the ground. The mug was one of those substantial Scandinavian ones that makes you feel like a child. I stood there drinking builder's tea and watching a bird I couldn't identify do something purposeful on a branch. It was extraordinarily peaceful and I felt, not for the first time on a solo holiday, slightly fraudulent in my appreciation of it. Should I be doing something? Hiking vigorously? Learning the local dialect? Instead I was drinking tea and leaning against a worktop like a man in a very slow advertisement for retirement.

The light began to go around four, as it does, and the house transformed into something even more appealing. The lamps were warm, the wooden walls seemed to glow, and I discovered the sauna, which I had somehow missed in my initial sweep. There it sat, modest and perfect, in what I can only call a utility area but which felt more like a small temple. I had not brought a towel suitable for sauna use, because of course I hadn't, and made a mental note to improvise with a t-shirt like the absolute amateur I am.

By evening I had established my territory: one chair by the window, a small pile of books I would definitely not finish, and a working knowledge of which floorboards creaked. The mishaps of arrival felt properly distant now, almost fond. I was here, in the Swedish forest, with my bruised dignity and my excellent tea. The sheep and the judgmental dog were kilometres away. Tomorrow I might walk to the village, or I might simply stand in more doorways looking at trees. Both seemed, suddenly, like absolutely proper ways to spend a day.