I have never been brilliant at reading ferry timetables, and my arrival on Orust proved this beyond doubt. There I stood at the terminal in Henan, rucksack at my feet, watching the little boat I'd intended to catch shrink towards the horizon. I'd misread the summer schedule by a full hour. The next crossing was not for ninety minutes. I sat on my bag, ate a squashed packet of crisps, and contemplated my own foolishness while a very confident seagull judged me from a nearby bollard.

When I finally reached the cottage, the June light was doing that extraordinary Swedish thing where it simply refuses to fade. It was half past nine and still bright enough to read a newspaper outside. The property sat among birch trees just back from the water, and everything smelled of warm pine and salt. I fumbled with the key box, dropped the code sheet, retrieved it from beneath a flowering currant bush, and stepped inside to find the place still holding the day's heat. The wooden walls seemed to breathe it out slowly.

That first evening, I did almost nothing useful. I opened every window, made a cup of tea that went cold because I kept wandering outside, and stood on the small deck watching the sky turn a pale, reluctant blue rather than proper darkness. The seasonal abundance was immediate and slightly overwhelming. The garden was exploding with growth, grass already tall enough to hide a badger, and some enthusiastic plant I later learned was elderflower pressing against the kitchen window as if demanding entry. I had packed a jumper and a waterproof, standard British holiday precaution, and felt faintly ridiculous.

Morning came early, not because I am naturally inclined to rise at dawn but because the light simply would not permit further sleep. At four o'clock, birds were conducting what sounded like a competitive shouting match in the surrounding trees. I gave up, made coffee, and walked down to the water in my socks, forgetting shoes in my half-awake state. The dew was extraordinary, soaking through immediately, but the stillness of the bay at that hour felt like being let in on a secret. A heron stood on a rock, ignored me thoroughly, and eventually lifted away with that ungainly grace they possess.

The season shaped everything about those first days. Meals happened at odd hours because my body could not quite believe the clock. I found myself eating supper at ten, breakfast at six, wandering outside at midnight in daylight that felt borrowed from somewhere else entirely. The local shop in Henan operated with the relaxed hours of a place that knows winter will eventually return and demand its due. I bought strawberries that tasted properly of something, and bread that was genuinely fresh, and felt disproportionately pleased with myself for such small achievements.

By the third day, I had stopped checking my watch against the light. The self-contained rhythm of a northern summer took over. I understood why the cottage had no television to speak of; it would have felt absurd, an intrusion from some other kind of time altogether. The mishap of my arrival, that missed ferry and the judging gull, seemed already like part of the same pattern. You do not come to this landscape in June for precision and schedules. You come because the season offers something that cannot be hurried, and the greatest mistake is trying to make it behave like ordinary time.