I have never been so grateful to see a wooden gate in all my life. After six hours of driving from Stockholm, a ferry crossing that I nearly missed because I was arguing with a sat nav that insisted on pronouncing every Swedish place name as if it were having a small stroke, and one spectacular incident involving a coffee cup, a sudden braking manoeuvre, and my only clean pair of trousers, I finally crunched up the gravel track to Sandby Lottorp. The coffee mishap had happened just outside Kalmar. I had been congratulating myself on my excellent navigation skills, one hand on the wheel, one hand on a takeaway cup, when a pheasant of frankly suicidal determination launched itself across the road. The coffee went everywhere. I spent the remaining hour of the drive smelling like a burnt caramel latte and sitting in damp discomfort. Not my most dignified arrival.

But then the gate swung open, and there it was. A traditional Oland cottage, all white-painted wood and terracotta roof tiles, squatting contentedly in a garden that seemed to have given up on any pretence of order and simply decided to be happy. The grass was that particular shade of gold-green you only get in Baltic summers. A hammock sagged invitingly between two trees. I could hear nothing except bees and the distant suggestion of the sea.

The key was exactly where the instructions said it would be, which already felt like a minor miracle given my track record that day. I pushed open the front door and was hit by that smell. You know the one. Old wood, dried lavender, sunshine that has been patiently collecting in rooms for decades. The floors were proper wooden boards, slightly uneven, the kind that creak in friendly greeting with every step. The kitchen had a red wood-burning stove that looked like it had been warming this cottage since before I was born. I ran my hand along the farmhouse table and immediately pictured myself doing absolutely nothing at it for a week.

I dumped my bag, changed into my only remaining clean clothes, and walked straight back out into the garden. The hammock was calling my name with the urgency of an old friend who has spotted you across a crowded room. I lay back, the ropes creaking alarmingly under my weight, and watched the sky through leaves that moved just enough to be interesting but not enough to require any actual attention from me.

This, I decided, was going to be the pattern. Not the dramatic landscapes or the ambitious excursions I had half-planned. Just this. The slow pleasure of noticing that the garden had apple trees, and that the apples were small and green and probably not ready for weeks. The discovery that the cottage had a proper porch with two wooden chairs positioned at mathematically perfect angles for afternoon reading. The realisation that the beach was a fifteen-minute walk away, which meant I could go there later, or tomorrow, or possibly the day after, and it would not matter in the slightest.

I did eventually wander down to the shore that first evening, still in my coffee-stained trousers because I had forgotten to change again and because nobody was there to judge me. The Baltic was doing its usual flat calm thing, that particular grey-blue that makes you understand why Scandinavians have so many words for subtle variations of light. I collected three stones, for no reason whatsoever, and walked back slowly enough to notice how the wildflowers in the verges had already started closing up for the night.

Back at the cottage, I made tea using the whistling kettle and sat on that porch until the mosquitoes finally drove me indoors. I had brought three books and had not opened any of them. This felt like a small triumph. The whole point, I was beginning to understand, was not to consume the holiday like a project to be completed. The point was to let it settle over you like the warmth that still radiated from those wooden walls long after the sun had gone down.

That first night I slept better than I had in months, on a mattress that was slightly firmer than fashionable but exactly right for a body that had been driving and spilling and worrying all day. I woke to full sunshine and the sound of a blackbird who had apparently decided to perform an opera in the garden. I lay there for a while, listening, not thinking about anything much, feeling the particular pleasure of knowing that the whole day stretched ahead with no obligation greater than deciding which chair to sit in.

I chose the porch again. Obviously.