I have to admit, the journey to our little holiday let in Sodermanland did not begin with the Scandinavian serenity I had imagined. Somewhere around the M11, convinced I was being terribly organised, I managed to pack three jars of marmite, a family-sized bag of crisps, and absolutely no teabags whatsoever. My partner, ever the pragmatist, simply raised an eyebrow and said, "Well, we're self-catering, not self-sabotaging." How right he would turn out to be.

The drive from Nykoping Airport took barely twenty minutes, which was just as well since I had spent most of the flight frantically googling "Swedish supermarkets open Sunday" and working myself into a mild panic about dinner. The property sat quietly among trees, all very red and wooden and reassuringly solid. I immediately opened the fridge with the confidence of someone who had planned ahead, then closed it slowly, remembering the marmite and the absence of literally everything else.

Our first mission was proper provisions. The local ICA in Nykoping became our salvation, though I use the word "local" loosely when I mean "we drove in circles for ten minutes because the satnav developed a personality disorder." The fish counter alone nearly reduced me to tears of joy. Vast pink sides of salmon, herring in more marinades than I knew existed, and something called "gravad lax" that I had only ever encountered in expensive London delis. I bought far too much, as is my way, plus a lump of Vasterbotten cheese that the assistant described as "very Swedish," which I took as both recommendation and challenge.

Back at the cottage, I attempted my first proper self-catering effort: a simple herring salad with new potatoes and sour cream. Simple, I say, though I spent twenty minutes trying to work out whether the herring needed further cooking. It did not, as my partner helpfully pointed out, having read the packet while I was frantically googling "can you eat pickled herring raw." The resulting dish was actually rather good, eaten on the little wooden deck with a glass of surprisingly decent box wine and the sound of absolutely nothing, which I found rather unsettling at first, then completely addictive.

The following morning brought my greatest triumph and humiliation. Determined to embrace local eating, I marched to the weekend market in Nykoping's old town, armed with phrasebook Swedish and dangerous confidence. I emerged with cloudberries, which cost approximately the same as a small car, and some excellent rye bread. I also, somehow, purchased what I thought was ham but turned out to be an extremely pungent fermented fish product. My attempt to incorporate this into breakfast was abandoned after one cautious sniff. Some cultural experiences, I reflected, perhaps require several generations of preparation.

By day three, I had settled into something approaching competence. The kitchen, compact but well-equipped, saw regular production of simple, decent meals: grilled salmon with dill from the garden, potato pancakes that were slightly burnt but authentically so, and one genuinely successful attempt at kanelbullar using a recipe I found taped inside a cupboard. They emerged wonky and enormous, more fist than bun, but we ate three each and felt enormously pleased with ourselves.

The local bakery became my morning ritual. A ten-minute walk through proper forest, which felt terribly wholesome until I realised I was using it to justify the daily cardamom bun. The baker, a woman of few words and excellent pastry, eventually recognised my shambling approach and would simply bag up my usual before I reached the counter. I chose to interpret this as affection rather than pity.

Our final evening, I attempted something ambitious with the remaining Vasterbotten cheese, some local mushrooms, and a great deal of butter. It was not sophisticated. It was absolutely delicious. We ate it with our fingers straight from the pan, sitting on that same wooden deck, watching the light fade through the trees. I thought about my abandoned marmite, sitting unloved in the cupboard, and felt only mild guilt. Some holidays change you, I suppose, though perhaps not as much as the cardamom buns changed my waistline.