I'd driven for what felt like three days but was probably closer to five hours from Gothenburg when I realised, with that particular sinking feeling that only comes from being a complete idiot, that I'd left the bag of groceries on the kitchen table back home. Not just any groceries, mind you. This was the carefully planned shop for our first night: the meatballs, the lingonberry jam, the bottle of red that I'd been promising myself since we boarded the ferry. There it sat, probably enjoying a more peaceful evening than we were.

My wife gave me that look. You know the one. The one that says "I love you but I genuinely cannot believe you sometimes." The kids, bless them, were too busy arguing over who had more legroom to notice their father's incompetence. We rolled into Lakene just as the light was starting to do that lovely Swedish thing where everything goes golden and soft, and I was still mentally kicking myself.

The cottage sat among birch trees with a view down to the lake that made me forget, momentarily, about the missing meatballs. It was one of those proper Swedish red-painted places with white trim, the sort that looks like it should be on a biscuit tin. The key was in the lockbox exactly where the instructions said, which was more than I could say for my organisational skills. I fumbled with the code while a mosquito the size of a small aircraft investigated my ear.

Inside smelled of pine and old books and that particular clean-dampness of lakeside places everywhere. The kids shot off to claim bedrooms, which in our family means a negotiation process more complex than most international treaties. My wife opened the fridge and gave me another look, this one slightly more sympathetic. Empty. Magnificently, echoingly empty. I'd really outdone myself.

What followed was a comedy of errors that I'm still not entirely over. We drove into Hagfors proper, which took all of seven minutes, and discovered that the supermarket closed at six on a Saturday. It was six-fifteen. The petrol station became our saviour, and I have never been more grateful for overpriced pasta and sauce in a jar. We ate on the little wooden deck as the light finally gave up and the lake turned silver-black, and you know what? It was absolutely perfect. The kids were too tired to argue. My wife laughed properly for the first time since I'd confessed the grocery disaster. A fish jumped somewhere out in the darkness, and we all turned like meerkats.

The next morning I woke before everyone else, made terrible coffee in the old percolator, and sat on that same deck in my jumper with a blanket over my knees. Mist was rising off the lake. A deer picked its way through the trees on the far shore. I thought about how I'd stressed over the forgotten bag, how I'd let it colour those first hours, and how completely unnecessary that had been. The cottage had everything we actually needed: the scruffy board games in the cupboard, the slightly lumpy sofas perfect for reading, the firepit we would use that evening with marshmallows that had survived the petrol station raid.

We walked down to the lake after breakfast, the kids throwing stones with that particular intensity children bring to pointless activities. The water was cold enough to make your bones ache but clear as gin. My wife swam properly, brave woman, while I paddled and made theatrical shivering noises.

That first day set the tone for the whole week. Not the forgotten groceries, not the petrol station dinner, but the sitting and the watching and the being together without anywhere particular to be. The cottage asked nothing of us except to slow down, and after a while, we managed it. The supermarket in Hagfors got properly visited. I bought enough meatballs to feed a small village. But part of me missed that first evening, the pasta from the garage, the laughter that came from things going slightly wrong and not mattering at all.

Some holidays you remember for what went right. This one, I'll remember for what didn't.