The trouble with booking a holiday home called Brastad is that you spend the entire journey convinced you're heading to a place that sounds like a Swedish cooking method. "We're off to Brastad," I'd announce to anyone who'd listen, usually followed by me miming some sort of vigorous oven action. My partner, who had long since perfected the art of ignoring me, simply kept her eyes on the road as we wound our way through Vastra Gotaland, the late afternoon sun turning the pine forests into something almost embarrassingly picturesque.

The mishap, because there is always a mishap with me, came at the final turn. Our sat-nav had apparently taken one look at the rural lanes and decided to have a small nervous breakdown. We found ourselves at what I can only describe as a very determined dead end, facing a field of extremely judgmental sheep. I, in my wisdom, had insisted on taking the "scenic route" for the final mile. The scenic route, it transpired, was designed exclusively for tractors and people with significantly better spatial awareness than I possess. Reversing a hire car down a narrow lane while sheep maintain unbroken eye contact is a humbling experience, and one I hope never to repeat.

By the time we actually reached the property, I was ready to abandon the car and simply live in the surrounding woodland like a particularly incompetent hermit. But then the place came into view, and something in my shoulders unclenched. The house sat there in that unhurried Swedish way, all clean lines and sensible proportions, with a deck that seemed to be actively beckoning us towards it. The key was exactly where promised, which felt almost suspiciously efficient after my navigational performance.

I will confess that my first act upon entering was not to admire the interior, though it was perfectly lovely with its pale wood and that particular Scandinavian knack for making simplicity feel generous. No, my first act was to locate the kettle, because I am British and trauma demands tea. My second act was to walk straight back out again with said tea and plant myself on that deck, where I remained for approximately the next four hours.

The sun, which had been merely pleasant during our sheep-related ordeal, now settled into something approaching commitment. It warmed the wooden boards beneath my feet and turned my cup of tea into a kind of spiritual experience. Somewhere in the distance, a lawnmower droned with the lazy persistence of someone who had absolutely nowhere else to be. I had brought a book, naturally, though I found myself reading the same paragraph approximately seventeen times while simply looking at things. The sky. The trees. A bird that I absolutely could not identify and had no intention of trying to.

My partner, who is marginally more industrious than I am, did venture out to investigate the immediate surroundings. She returned with reports of a charming little village centre within easy walking distance, a bakery that smelled of cardamom in that specifically Swedish fashion, and a coastal path that apparently offered views worth the mild exertion. I nodded along benevolently, made appreciative noises, and did not move. The sun had found me, and I had no intention of abandoning my post.

There is something deeply restorative about giving yourself permission to do almost nothing in a new place. I am usually the sort of person who treats holidays as military operations, with itineraries and objectives and a faint sense of panic if I am not constantly experiencing something. But Brastad, or perhaps the Swedish sunshine, or perhaps simply the accumulated exhaustion of being me, had performed some small alchemy. I watched the light shift across the garden. I finished my book, eventually. I considered, with the seriousness it deserved, whether I might acquire a similar deck for our own home, knowing full well that British weather would render it largely decorative.

The evening brought that particular northern softness, the light lingering past the point where it reasonably should. We walked, finally, just to the nearest stretch of coastline, where the rocks had been worn smooth and the water moved with the quiet confidence of something very cold and very old. I picked up a stone and immediately put it down again, having nowhere sensible to put it. This felt like enough activity for one day, possibly for several.

I have stayed in many places that demanded more of me. Brastad asked only that I arrive, eventually, and then stop. I am not certain I have ever been more grateful for a set of sheep, a wrong turn, and a deck that held me in the sunshine until I remembered how to be still.