I should have known the satnav was up to no good when it started speaking in what I can only describe as an aggressive whisper. We'd been driving from Calais for what felt like three hours but was probably closer to four, thanks to my steadfast refusal to pay motorway tolls. "Scenic route," I'd declared, as we crawled past yet another field of identical cows. My partner, who had long since stopped responding to my travel commentary, simply stared out at the drizzle with the hollow eyes of a man who had accepted his fate.

The mishap came just outside Bastogne. I spotted a sign for Rendeux and, in a burst of misplaced confidence, turned down what the satnav later admitted was "a suggestion, not an instruction." Ten minutes of increasingly narrow Belgian lanes later, we found ourselves at a dead end behind a farmhouse, confronted by a very large and very unimpressed horse. I attempted a three-point turn that became a seven-point turn, during which I may have reversed into a hedge. The horse watched the entire performance with what I can only describe as theatrical disdain. We emerged with a bumper full of twigs and my dignity in similar condition.

By the time we actually reached the holiday home in Rendeux, the drizzle had graduated to proper rain. The stone cottage sat among trees with that particular Belgian Ardennes look, half-timbered and slightly hunched against the weather, as if it too had seen my parking attempt and was quietly judging me. My partner finally spoke: "At least the horse isn't here."

We dumped our bags and, against all meteorological logic, decided to attempt a walk immediately. The guidebook, which I had skimmed in the car while my partner drove, promised "gentle woodland strolls" and "dramatic valley views." What it did not mention was that Belgian gentle is rather more committed than British gentle. The path climbed almost immediately, turning to mud that sucked at our boots with each step. Within twenty minutes, the rain had found its way through what the shop assistant in Dover had sworn was a waterproof jacket. I could feel water tracing a cold line down my spine, like a finger of doom.

We pressed on, because that is what we do, us British, when we've made a poor decision in foreign weather. The valley views, when they emerged through the grey, were genuinely spectacular. The River Ourthe twisted below, brown and swollen with rain, and the hills rolled away in layers of dark green that made me think of those medieval paintings where everything looks slightly unreal. For perhaps four minutes, the rain paused. I stood there, dripping and steaming slightly, and felt something approaching contentment.

Then the heavens reopened with what I can only describe as personal animosity.

The walk back was quicker, though mostly because we abandoned the proper path and took what I will generously call a shortcut. This involved scrambling down a slope that my partner later described as "a vertical bog," though I think he was being dramatic. We arrived back at the cottage plastered in mud to the knees, my waterproof jacket having surrendered entirely, and stood in the hallway dripping onto the stone floor.

I looked at my partner. He looked at me. We were both forty years old, standing in a Belgian cottage hallway like drowned rats who had lost a fight with a hillside.

"Pub?" I suggested.

"Pub," he agreed.

And that, really, was when the holiday properly began.