I have never been so relieved to see a set of keys in a lockbox as I was after our fourteen-hour slog to Skane. The train from Copenhagen was straightforward enough, but somewhere near Malmo I had a moment of pure genius and managed to leave my rucksack on the platform during a change. By the time I realised, the doors had shut and my partner was giving me that particular look that says "I love you but honestly, how do you function?" Three hours and one very apologetic conversation with lost property later, we finally collected the hire car and pointed it toward Ystad.

The drive south was actually rather lovely once I stopped sulking. Flat fields rolled out in every direction, that particular pale green of early Swedish summer, with the occasional red wooden farmhouse looking like something from a children's book. My partner drove while I clutched my recovered rucksack like a comfort blanket and tried to pretend the whole debacle had never happened.

We found the cottage down a narrow lane just outside the town proper, gravel crunching under the tyres as we pulled up. It was one of those traditional Skane houses, white-painted with a dark timber frame, roses already climbing around the door despite it being only late May. The garden was larger than I'd expected, properly private, with an old apple tree in one corner and what looked like a well-tended vegetable patch along one fence. Someone had left a wooden bench beneath the tree, positioned perfectly for evening light.

The lockbox yielded its treasure with satisfying efficiency, Swedish practicality at its finest. Inside, the place smelled of pine and something faintly herby, perhaps from a bundle of dried lavender hanging in the kitchen. The floors were wide plank wood, worn soft in the middle from decades of use, and the windows were the sort of deep-set sills that invite you to sit with a cup of tea and watch the world go very slowly by. I immediately claimed the bedroom with the window overlooking the garden, though my partner pointed out I had forfeited all choosing rights through my rucksack performance. Fair enough, really.

The kitchen was simple but properly equipped, not one of those holiday rentals where you open a drawer to find a single blunt knife and a tin opener from 1973. There was even a proper coffee maker, the kind that gurgles companionably on the hob. We had brought supplies from a supermarket in Ystad, standing slightly bewildered in front of the cheese selection for an embarrassing length of time. Swedish supermarkets always make me feel like an incompetent adult, somehow more organised than I will ever be.

By evening we were too tired for anything ambitious, so we simply sat on that garden bench with bread and cheese and a bottle of local cider, watching the light turn golden across the fields. A hare loped across the far end of the garden, utterly unconcerned by our presence. Somewhere nearby, a tractor droned, and the smell of cut grass drifted over from a neighbouring field. I found myself laughing about the rucksack incident for the first time, my partner joining in with the particular warmth of shared absurdity. There is something about the quiet of this landscape that lets you find humour in your own foolishness rather than dwelling on it.

We turned in early, the silence of the countryside settling around us like a blanket. Lying in the unfamiliar darkness, listening to my partner's breathing slow into sleep, I felt that particular holiday sensation of having arrived somewhere that would slowly reveal itself. The mishap was already becoming a story rather than a stress, and the cottage felt immediately like a place where nothing much would be required of us except presence. I fell asleep planning a slow morning, perhaps a wander into Ystad proper for proper coffee and a look at the harbour, but mainly just this, the peace of a garden and the particular light of southern Sweden.

The last thing I noticed before sleep was the apple tree, its branches moving slightly against the stars, promising something in autumn that we would not be there to see, but which felt generous to witness even in bud.