The drive up to Dalarna felt like it took roughly seventeen years, though my satnav insisted it was only four hours from Stockholm. Somewhere past Borlange, convinced I was being clever, I decided to ignore the main road and follow what looked like a shortcut through the forest. It was not a shortcut. It was a gravel track designed, I suspect, to teach arrogant tourists a lesson. Twenty minutes of white-knuckling it past pine trees and the occasional suspicious moose later, I emerged back onto the proper road precisely one kilometre behind where I had turned off. I sat at the junction for a moment, considering my life choices, then carried on like a sensible person.

By the time I pulled up to the stuga in Malung, I had that particular brand of travel fatigue where everything feels slightly unreal. The light was doing that lovely Swedish thing, all low and golden even though it was half past eight in the evening. The house sat there in a little clearing, red paint and white trim, looking like it had been waiting patiently for someone to stop being an idiot in a hire car and actually arrive.

I fumbled with the key box for longer than I care to admit. There is a special humiliation in standing in beautiful countryside, surrounded by birdsong and the smell of pine, while you fail to open a plastic box because you are typing the code in backwards. A neighbour's cat watched me from a fence post with what I can only describe as professional disdain. When the key finally dropped into my palm, I may have said "thank you" to nobody in particular.

Stepping inside was like walking into a hug. The place smelled of wood and something faintly citrusy, probably the cleaning products, but I chose to believe it was just Swedish magic. The kitchen had proper wooden worktops, not that laminate nonsense, and someone had left a little vase of wildflowers on the table. I stood there in my socks, still holding my suitcase, feeling suddenly and embarrassingly emotional about a stranger's thoughtfulness.

The living room had one of those big stoves in the corner, the kind you can actually cook on if you're feeling rustic or have forgotten how the hob works. There were woven rugs on the floor and paintings of horses on the walls, because of course there were; this is Dalarna, where the Dala horse was born. I had read that in the guidebook and promptly forgotten it, but standing there it came back to me, and I felt briefly cultured.

I dumped my case in the bedroom, which had crisp white bedding and windows that actually open properly, unlike my flat in London where "open" means "move two inches then jam forever." The view was just trees and more trees and a glimpse of what I later learned was a proper Swedish lake, but at that moment I didn't investigate. I was too busy standing on the little wooden deck with a cup of tea I had made with slightly wrong proportions because I was too tired to measure properly.

The quiet got me. Not silence exactly, because there was birdsong and wind in the trees and somewhere a dog barking miles away, but the absence of traffic and sirens and the general grinding hum of city life. I kept waiting for my brain to fill the gap with worry or to-do lists, but instead I just stood there, tea going cold in my hands, watching the light change.

That neighbour's cat had followed me round and now sat on the deck step, apparently granting me provisional permission to exist in its territory. I offered it a saucer of milk I found in the fridge, which it sniffed and rejected. Fair enough. I was still on probation.

I went to bed early, embarrassingly early, still in the t-shirt I had travelled in. The mattress was firmer than I usually like and I slept better than I had in months.