We had been on the road for what felt like fourteen hours but was probably closer to four when I realised, with the sort of sinking feeling that only comes from absolute certainty, that I had left the cottage keys on the kitchen table back in Malmo. Not our kitchen table, mind you. The kitchen table of the lovely couple we had just spent the night with, who were now forty minutes behind us and not answering their phone because they had gone to a farmers market. Of course they had. It was Saturday morning in Skane, and everyone sensible was off buying rhubarb and artisan cheese.

My wife gave me that look. You know the one. The look that says "I love you, but I am also considering whether the divorce laws in Sweden are favourable enough to make this the moment." Our two children, bless them, were too busy arguing over a dropped crisp to notice that their father had just turned a straightforward drive into an extended family bonding exercise.

The satnav had been trying to kill us for the last half hour anyway, sending us down lanes barely wide enough for a determined bicycle. Skane's countryside is absurdly pretty in that understated Scandinavian way, all rolling fields and red wooden houses tucked among birch trees, but when you are crawling along wondering if your wing mirrors will survive the next hedge, you do not fully appreciate the aesthetic. We passed a field of bright yellow rapeseed that glowed like a promise, then another, then a sign pointing toward Oerkelljunga that looked like it had been hand-painted sometime in the 1970s and never touched again.

By the time we actually found Sjunkamossa, I had aged approximately eleven years. The cottage sat at the end of a gravel track, surrounded by nothing much except trees and silence and that particular quality of light you get in southern Sweden on a clear afternoon. It was smaller than I had expected from the photographs, which is almost always the way, but it wore its modesty well. Red timber walls, white window frames, a little wooden deck that looked like it had hosted a thousand summer breakfasts. The kind of place that immediately makes you want to slow down whether you planned to or not.

My wife went to investigate the key safe while I stood there with our bags, pretending I had meant for us to arrive in this frazzled state because it would make the eventual relaxation more earned. The children had already discovered a rope swing hanging from an oak tree and were taking turns seeing who could launch themselves closest to the neighbouring field. I did not stop them. I was too busy noticing how quiet it was, how the air smelled of pine and something else I could not name, something that made my shoulders drop without my permission.

She found the spare key, because of course there was a spare key, because this is Sweden and people here seem to understand that humans are fundamentally fallible. The door opened with a satisfying weight to it, and we stepped into a living room that felt immediately like somewhere you could exhale properly. Wood-burning stove in the corner, checked curtains, furniture that had been chosen for comfort rather than any pretence at style. A small kitchen with everything you need and nothing you do not. Upstairs, bedrooms with sloped ceilings that my son immediately declared "cosy" and my daughter declared "a concussion risk," both of which were fair assessments.

I stood by the window looking out at the garden, at the swing still in motion, at my wife already investigating whether the coffee maker worked. The panic of the lost keys, the stress of the narrow lanes, all of it was already softening at the edges. This was the point of coming here, I reminded myself. Not to execute a perfect journey, but to stop trying so hard at everything. To let a holiday be what it was meant to be: a little imperfect, a little slow, a little bit about just being in a place rather than rushing through it.

The coffee maker worked. The children found a badminton set in a cupboard. I sat on that wooden deck and watched the evening light stretch across the grass, and I thought: we will probably get the keys tomorrow, and everything will be fine, and I will try very hard not to do something equally stupid before then. But no promises.