I have never been so grateful to see a flat pack in my life. After six hours of driving from Copenhagen airport, my partner and I finally pulled up to our little red cabin in the woods near Vittsjo, only to discover I had packed three left wellies, zero right ones, and somehow convinced myself that Skane in late autumn would be "mild, probably." It was not mild. It was the sort of damp that seeps into your bones and makes you reconsider every life choice that led you to a Swedish forest without proper footwear.

The cabin itself was straight out of a postcard, if postcards featured slightly wonky wooden decking and a hot tub that looked like it had seen things. I loved it instantly. My partner, ever the pragmatist, was busy Googling "nearest shoe shop" while I stood in the drizzle, grinning like an idiot at a squirrel.

Our first morning, we hobbled into Vittsjo village proper, me in borrowed trainers two sizes too big from the cabin's "guest supplies" cupboard. We stopped at the local supermarket for essentials, where I met Bengt. Bengt was seventy if he was a day, wearing a high-vis jacket for no discernible reason, and he took one look at my feet and said, "You are not from here." This was not a question. I explained my wellie situation, and he laughed for a solid minute, a wheezing, shoulder-shaking affair that ended with him insisting we follow him to his house. I shot my partner a look that said "are we being murdered," but Bengt was already halfway down the pavement.

His house was a treasure trove of garden gnomes and political opinions. He produced a pair of his late wife's wellies, slightly cracked but fundamentally functional, and refused payment. "She would have liked you," he said, which made me unexpectedly emotional for someone standing in a stranger's porch wearing borrowed footwear. We talked for an hour. He told us about Vittsjo's history, the lake's fishing spots, the best place to buy elk sausage. He had opinions about Danish drivers. Many opinions.

That afternoon, damp but determined, we walked the forest trails near Osby. We met no one for an hour, then encountered a woman in her sixties power-walking with two enormous dogs and a thermos clipped to her belt like a mountaineer. Her name was Ingrid, and she informed us that the dogs were "useless idiots, but family," which I found enormously comforting. She asked if we were "the cabin people," news apparently travelling fast in a town of eight hundred souls. She recommended a bakery in Osby that did "acceptable cinnamon buns," which in Swedish terms is glowing praise.

The bakery, run by a twenty-something called Erik who had moved back from Stockholm "because cities are exhausting," provided the acceptable buns and exceptional coffee. He asked about London rents, winced sympathetically, and told us about his mother's moose stew recipe with the air of someone sharing state secrets.

By evening, back in our cabin, feet finally dry, I found myself reflecting on something I had not expected. I am usually terrible at talking to strangers. Terrible. I overthink, I panic, I find urgent reasons to examine my phone. But here, in this damp corner of Skane, with my ridiculous footwear and my basic Swedish, people simply talked to me. There was no performance to it, no networking anxiety, just Bengt and Ingrid and Erik being themselves in a place small enough that being yourself is basically compulsory.

I still have Bengt's wife's wellies. He said to return them next year. I think I might.