The sat nav gave up on us somewhere between Hoor and OErkelljunga, which should have been my first clue that this holiday would involve a bit of old-fashioned guesswork. We'd been driving up from Malmo, the kids were already on the verge of a mutiny over whose turn it was with the tablet, and my other half had that particular set to his jaw that meant he was pretending the Swedish road signs made perfect sense to him. They did not. We ended up down a farm track, surrounded by fields so flat and green they looked almost apologetic about how little drama they were offering, and there I was in the passenger seat, holding a printed map like it was 1997.

The mishap, because there is always one with us, came when I confidently directed us down what I swore was the correct lane. It wasn't. We found ourselves in someone's actual garden, complete with a startled-looking cat and a washing line full of what I can only describe as extremely well-organised underwear. The owner, a chap in wellies who emerged from a shed, was far more amused than annoyed, and with some pointing and broken English that made us all feel like we were in a particularly wholesome episode of a Scandinavian crime drama, he set us right. We reversed out with what dignity we could muster, which wasn't much, and finally found the turning.

The cottage sat at the end of a gravel track, red-painted and white-trimmed in that way Swedish holiday homes have, as if they've been dipped in a very specific national identity. The grass around it was long enough to suggest privacy without tipping into abandonment, and there were apple trees in the garden that looked like they'd seen a few summers come and go. My first thought, I'll admit, was about the coffee. I'd read somewhere that Swedish holiday cottages run on the stuff, and I was desperate to get the pot on and pretend I belonged there.

Inside, it smelled of wood and something faintly herby, perhaps from the previous occupants or perhaps just from the place itself. The kitchen was compact in that efficient Nordic way, everything within reach, nothing showy. The living area had a wood burner that I immediately decided would be the centre of our evenings, even though it was August and we probably wouldn't need it. There's something about a wood burner that makes a holiday feel legitimate, isn't there? Like you're really getting away from it all, even if the all you're getting away from is central heating and reliable broadband.

The kids shot upstairs to claim bedrooms before we'd even brought the cases in, which meant the usual negotiations and one of them returning to announce they'd taken the room with the better view and the other was being unreasonable. I left them to it and stood in the kitchen, filling the kettle from a tap that ran with the kind of cold water that makes you understand why people write poems about Scandinavian clarity.

My other half appeared with the first load of bags, slightly sweatier than when he'd started, and we shared one of those looks. You know the ones. The is-this-really-happening look that comes after months of planning and saving and wondering if a self-catering break in southern Sweden was perhaps a bit ambitious for a family who normally holiday in Cornwall. But the light was coming through the windows in that soft, late-afternoon Skane way, and somewhere in the distance I could hear what I chose to believe was a woodpecker rather than someone doing DIY, and I felt something in my shoulders drop that I hadn't realised was clenched.

We'd got here. Eventually. Via someone else's laundry.