I should have known the satnav was up to no good the moment it tried to send me through what looked like someone's back garden in Karlstad. Three hours from Gothenburg, two coffees, one heated debate about whether we were still on the right road, and there I was, standing in a lay-by in Varmland, staring at a sign that definitely said Gunnarskog but apparently not the bit of Gunnarskog I actually wanted.

The mishap, if you can call it that, was entirely my fault. I'd written down the directions on a napkin at the airport cafe, and a smear of cinnamon bun glaze had obliterated the last two digits of the house number. So we pulled up to a charming red cabin, confidently hauled our cases out, and were halfway to the door when a very polite woman appeared with a dog the size of a small pony and explained, in perfect English, that we were two hundred metres too early. The dog looked deeply unimpressed. I have rarely felt more British.

The correct property, when we finally reached it, sat among birch trees with the lake glinting through gaps in the foliage like someone was teasing us with it. My first thought was how quiet it was. Not the awkward silence of a doctor's waiting room, but a proper, generous stillness that made me aware of how much noise I usually carry around in my own head. The kind of quiet that follows you inside and sits down with a cup of tea.

The cabin itself had that particular Swedish practicality about it. Nothing fussy, everything where you need it. The wood-burning stove dominated the living area like a friendly bear, and I immediately began planning my evening around the satisfying business of lighting it properly. The kitchen window framed a view of the water so perfectly it might have been hung there deliberately. I kept catching myself standing with the fridge door open, staring out rather than actually retrieving anything.

Down by the lake, a small wooden jetty stretched out with the confident modesty of something that knows exactly what it's for. The water was that particular northern colour, neither green nor blue but some secret third option. I sat on the edge with my boots still on, which felt like the appropriate level of commitment for someone who had only just arrived. A pair of ducks conducted what seemed like an important meeting further along the shore.

What struck me most was how quickly the place slowed me down. I am not naturally a slow person. I walk quickly, eat quickly, form opinions quickly. But something about the particular quality of light through those birch trees, the distant sound of a motorboat that never seemed to get any closer, the absolute absence of anything demanding my attention - it all conspired to make rushing feel faintly ridiculous. I actually laughed out loud at myself, sitting there on someone else's jetty in someone else's socks because I'd already changed into indoor shoes and couldn't be bothered to find my boots again.

By the time the evening came, painting the sky in colours I would have dismissed as excessive in a photograph, I had achieved that rare state of having no idea what time it was and caring even less. The stove was lit. The cinnamon bun incident was already becoming a story rather than an embarrassment. And somewhere out there beyond the trees, a lake I had not yet properly explored was waiting with the patience of something that had been there long before I arrived and would remain long after I left.

I think I could get used to being this sort of slow.