Getting to Resmo was meant to be the easy bit. We had flown to Kalmar, picked up the hire car, and even remembered to put the child seats in the boot this time. Progress. Then, somewhere between the bridge onto Oland and our final turn, I managed to follow the sat nav straight into what I can only describe as a glorified tractor path. My wife sat in silence. The kids thought it was brilliant. I reversed three hundred metres past a very judgmental-looking sheep and found the actual road, which had been helpfully signposted the entire time. Classic.

The cottage itself sits in that quiet pocket of southern Oland where the landscape opens up into farmland and the Baltic glimmers in the distance. First impressions? Properly charming. Red wooden cladding, white trim, the whole traditional Swedish summer house look. You half expect someone to hand you a fishing rod and tell you stories about the seventies. The garden was already doing its thing when we arrived, mid-June, with wildflowers everywhere and a lawn that looked soft enough to sleep on. The children bolted straight for the swing set while I stood there with the keys, still slightly traumatised by the sheep incident.

Inside, it smelled of pine and clean laundry, which is basically the scent of holiday optimism. The kitchen was compact but organised, the kind of space that makes you want to attempt proper cooking rather than just survive on crisps. We had a quick explore. Two bedrooms, a living area with enough board games to suggest previous families had actually spent time together, and windows that framed the green outside like paintings. I kept catching myself standing still, just looking. The pace shift was immediate and slightly disorientating, in the best way.

That evening we walked the ten minutes down to the coast, because apparently I had promised the children a beach and they do not forget these things. The shore near Resmo is not your bucket-and-spade postcard affair. It is rockier, more honest, with smooth stones and that particular Baltic clarity where you can see right down to the bottom on calm days. We skimmed stones badly, collected ones that were definitely not coming home with us, and watched the light do that long, slow fade that northern summers do so well. My youngest fell into a rock pool up to his knee. He considered crying, decided against it, and carried on. There is something about this place that makes minor disasters feel manageable.

Back at the cottage, we fired up the barbecue that sits on the wooden deck. Nothing fancy, just sausages and the local bread I had panic-bought at a petrol station. We ate outside until the mosquitoes politely suggested we move in, then sat with the windows open and the last of the light still hanging about. I realised I had not checked my phone in hours. My wife noticed too. She did not comment, which was comment enough.

I think what struck me most about that first day was how quickly the place made us behave differently. No grand activities, no ticking off sights. Just space, and the permission to do very little with it. The mishap with the tractor path already felt like someone else's story, or at least a story we would laugh about properly by tomorrow. The sheep, I suspect, has moved on entirely.