I should have known the Swedish weather would have the last laugh. There I was, smug as anything, having remembered to pack my wellies, my waterproof jacket, and even one of those travel kettles that never quite works properly. What I had not remembered, in my infinite wisdom, was to check which side of the car the fuel cap was on before pulling up to the petrol station in Jonkoping. Cue ten minutes of me driving round the forecourt like a learner, trying to angle the hire car close enough to the pump, while a queue of remarkably patient Swedes watched in what I can only describe as polite bewilderment. I am fairly certain one man was suppressing a smile. I would have been too.

By the time I finally reached the holiday home outside Aneby, the late October afternoon was already folding itself into early evening. The journey from Jonkoping had taken me through forests so dense with autumn colour that the road seemed to tunnel through copper and gold. Every now and then a glimpse of a lake would appear, grey and still, reflecting the pale sky like a half-hearted mirror. Then the trees would close in again, and I would find myself alone on a narrow road with no other car in sight, wondering if my satnav had developed a sense of humour.

The house sat at the end of a gravel track, half-hidden by birch trees that had already shed most of their leaves. What struck me first was the silence. Not the uncomfortable, heavy sort, but a living quietness, broken occasionally by the soft thud of a cone dropping or the distant call of some bird I could not identify. The air smelled of damp earth and woodsmoke from a neighbouring chimney. I stood there with my suitcase, breathing it in, suddenly aware that my city lungs were getting rather more than they were used to.

The key was exactly where the instructions said it would be, which I took as a small victory after the petrol cap debacle. Stepping inside, the warmth hit me immediately. Whoever had prepared the place understood something about autumn in Smaland. The heating was on, low and steady, and there was a faint scent of pine from the wooden walls. The kitchen had that particular stillness of rooms that have been empty for a while, waiting to be woken up. I put the kettle on, using the proper hob kettle rather than my useless travel one, and stood at the window watching the last light leak out of the sky.

What I had not expected was how quickly the darkness would feel like a presence rather than an absence. By four o'clock it was properly night, and the windows became black mirrors showing only my own reflection and the warm yellow of the lamp behind me. I found myself moving more slowly, deliberately, as if the season demanded a different rhythm. There was no temptation to rush out and see everything at once. The autumn had already decided the pace for me.

I cooked a simple dinner from supplies I had brought, because the local shops were further than I had realised and I was not about to risk another driving performance in the dark. The forest pressed close around the house, and I caught myself listening between bites, expecting something, though I could not have said what. A moose, perhaps, or just the wind shifting through the bare branches. Neither arrived, but the listening itself became a kind of pleasure I had forgotten existed.

Before bed I stepped outside for a moment, properly rugged up this time. The cold was sharp and immediate, the sort that catches in your throat. Above the trees, the stars were doing something extraordinary, thick and bright in a way that light-polluted skies simply do not allow. I stood there until my toes protested, feeling simultaneously very small and very present, which I suppose is what people mean when they talk about getting away from it all, though I would never say so out loud.

The mishap at the petrol station felt like it had happened to someone else already. That is the thing about arriving somewhere properly seasonal, I think. The world narrows to what is immediately around you, and the rest falls away like leaves from a birch tree, quietly and without fuss.