I have never been so relieved to see a windmill in my life. After six hours of driving from Stockholm, a wrong turn that took us through what I can only describe as a very flat and very confusing field, and one spectacular argument about whether the sat nav was "having a laugh" or simply broken, we finally spotted the Raella Tall rising up above the Oland countryside like some kind of wooden lighthouse. My partner had insisted on driving the last stretch. I had insisted on navigating. We were both, it is fair to say, rather hungry and not speaking.

The Raella Tall is a proper old windmill, the sort you see on postcards and assume cannot possibly be somewhere you actually get to sleep in. Yet here we were, hauling our bags up the narrow staircase and immediately forgetting our bickering in the sheer absurdity of it. The living space is up top, all sloping ceilings and creaking floorboards, with windows that frame the Oland fields like paintings. My partner opened the fridge, which I had packed with supplies from a Stockholm supermarket in what I now realised was a complete panic, and announced that we had seventeen eggs, four packs of butter, and something claiming to be "surstromming" that I definitely did not remember buying. I suspect I grabbed it in a delirium. We agreed, silently, to pretend it did not exist.

That first evening, we walked to the nearby village shop, which is the sort of place that closes at half five and judges you slightly for arriving at twenty past. I bought local potatoes, some smoked fish, and a jar of pickled herring that the woman behind the counter described as "traditional" with a look that suggested this was non-negotiable. Back at the mill, I attempted to cook what I imagined a proper Oland supper should be. The kitchen in the Raella Tall is compact but surprisingly well-equipped, though I did manage to set off the smoke alarm twice. The potatoes were excellent. The herring was an experience. My partner ate three portions and claimed to love it, though his expression suggested a complex inner journey.

Morning brought the Kalmar Strait glittering in the distance and a desperate need for coffee. The mill has no garden to speak of, really, just grass and sky, so we took our mugs outside and watched a hare lope across the field while debating whether Swedish breakfast should involve more or less cheese than we were currently consuming. I had brought a loaf of dense rye bread from a bakery in Borgholm, which we ate with butter and cloudberry jam I found at a farm shop down the road. The jam was expensive and I have no regrets.

The real revelation came at the Saturday market in nearby Morbylanga. I say nearby; everything on Oland is nearby if you adjust your expectations. The market sprawled across the square with stalls of new potatoes, strawberries that actually tasted of something, smoked sausages, and elderly men selling honey with the quiet confidence of people who have never once doubted their product. I bought too much, as always. A bunch of dill the size of a small tree. Fresh peas in their pods. Some kind of cheese that the vendor described only as "strong" and which indeed proved to be a conversation piece for the remainder of the afternoon.

That evening I attempted a proper Swedish midsummer-style feast, though it was only late May and the weather was doing its best to discourage outdoor dining. I boiled the new potatoes with dill, shelled the peas with a dedication that surprised us both, and grilled the sausages on a tiny disposable barbecue that the mill's owner had left in a shed. The wind kept blowing out the flames. We ate inside, huddled under the sloping ceiling, and it was absolutely perfect in its ridiculousness.

By day three I had settled into a rhythm of sorts. Morning coffee with the hare, if he appeared. A trip to some farm shop or market, because Oland runs on small producers and I was determined to support all of them personally. Afternoon attempts at cooking things I had never considered before. One memorable failure involved trying to make my own gravlax from some very cheap salmon that I now understand was not remotely suitable. We ate it anyway, mostly out of stubbornness, and spent the evening making faces at each other across the mill's small table.

The Raella Tall does not coddle you. The shower is enthusiastic rather than powerful. The stairs are not for the uncertain of foot. But cooking in that strange round kitchen, with the windmill's mechanism creaking above you and the Oland light coming through windows built for a different century, feels like participating in something. You are not just visiting. You are temporarily inhabiting a very specific, very Swedish kind of life.

On our final morning, I made pancakes with the last of those seventeen eggs. They were slightly rubbery, as my pancakes always are, but we ate them with the last of the cloudberry jam and agreed that this was probably the point. Not perfection. Just the attempt, in a windmill, in a field, in a country that takes its food very seriously indeed and somehow lets you join in anyway.