I should have known the holiday proper had begun when my phone decided Mariefred was somewhere near Copenhagen rather than forty minutes west of Stockholm. There I was, beetling down a country lane convinced I was being terribly adventurous, only to fetch up at a locked gate in front of a field of extremely judgmental sheep. The sat nav had done that thing where it whispers "recalculating" with what I can only describe as digital disappointment.

Three-point turn. Sheep still watching. Me pretending I had meant to inspect that particular hedgerow all along.

The actual property, when I finally found it, sat tucked among birch trees with that particular Swedish stillness that makes you want to whisper for no reason. A red wooden house with white trim, the sort that looks like it should have a gingerbread family living inside. I unloaded the car with what I thought was stealth, promptly tripped over a root, and sent my weekend reading skittering across the gravel. A neighbour emerged from somewhere, nodded politely, and retreated without comment. I appreciated this enormously. British suburbia would have required twenty minutes of commiseration and offers of tea.

The first evening I did not plan. This becomes important. I had intended a sensible walk to orient myself, perhaps locate the lake I knew was nearby. Instead I took a wrong turning almost immediately, seduced by a path that looked official but was, I suspect, maintained chiefly by moose. The woods thickened. The light did that golden Scandinavian thing where everything looks slightly enchanted. I was, by any reasonable measure, lost.

Here is where I expected mild panic. What actually happened: I found a clearing with a single wooden bench, clearly placed by someone who understood something about solitude. Sat down. Listened to nothing in particular. A woodpecker somewhere, the creak of trees, my own breathing slowing to match something older than my usual rhythm. I had not intended to have a small epiphany about my relationship with busyness, yet there it was, arriving uninvited like the neighbour who doesn't offer tea.

The path, when I found it again, led not back to the house but to a tiny beach I cannot locate on any map I have since consulted. Stones worn smooth, water so clear you could count the reeds below. I waded in because it seemed rude not to, given the effort the universe had clearly expended in delivering me there. Cold, obviously. Swedish lakes are not interested in your comfort. But I stood there like a fool, grinning at nothing, water to my knees, feeling briefly and completely present in a way that my London self finds embarrassingly difficult.

Mariefred proper, when I finally reached it the following day, revealed itself in similar fashion. I had meant to visit the castle, the Gripsholm everyone mentions. Got distracted by a bakery smell, took a different street, found myself in a courtyard where an elderly man was restoring a wooden boat with the sort of patience that suggested he had nowhere else to be for several years. We did not speak beyond a nod. It was perfect.

The castle, when I did see it, was fine. Impressive, even. But I find I remember less of it than the boat, the bench, the beach that shouldn't exist. The holiday became a series of these accidents. A wrong turn that delivered me to a farm shop selling cloudberry jam and unsolicited advice about mushroom foraging. A missed bus that meant walking, that meant discovering a churchyard where someone had left fresh flowers on a grave from 1847.

I am not naturally a person who gets lost gracefully. The sheep would confirm this. But Soedermanland, it turns out, rewards the wandering. The landscape seems designed for it, forests giving way to water giving way to some unexpected human touch, a painted gate, a stack of firewood arranged with aesthetic precision. You cannot plan for these things. You can only agree to be distracted, to follow the moose path, to accept that your phone thinks you are in Denmark and carry on regardless.

On my final morning I tried to retrace my steps to that first bench. Failed, naturally. Found a different clearing, different light, equally sufficient. This, I think, is the lesson I am still processing. The best bits happen when you stop insisting on where you are going. The sheep knew this all along.