I have never been so grateful for a sat nav in my entire life, and I have never sworn at one quite so creatively either. The journey to our Somme Leuze gite near Namur had been going swimmingly until it very much was not. Somewhere between Charleroi and our final destination, I took what I confidently declared to be "a scenic shortcut" through the Ardennes foothills. It was November. It was drizzling. The shortcut turned out to be a logging track. My partner sat in stony silence while our little hire car developed an intimate relationship with several hundred metres of Belgian mud. By the time we reached the proper road again, the car looked like it had been through a rally stage, and my dignity was somewhere back near that particularly aggressive puddle.

We arrived at the Somme Leuze property as the afternoon light was doing that rapid fade thing it does in late autumn, when four o'clock feels like bedtime and everything smells of woodsmoke and damp leaves. The gite itself sat among rolling farmland with the kind of bare, sculptural trees that make you suddenly understand why landscape painters get so worked up about Belgium. The stone building looked properly settled into its surroundings, as if it had grown there rather than been built, and the warm glow from the windows suggested someone inside understood the fundamental human need for central heating in November.

Our host had left the key in the agreed spot and, more importantly, had clearly fired up the wood-burning stove in anticipation of our arrival. The first thing that hit me was that particular dry warmth you only get from proper wood heat, followed immediately by the smell of it, that resinous, slightly smoky scent that clings to your clothes and makes you feel approximately eight years old again. I stood in the doorway for a moment, still wearing my muddy boots, and felt something in my shoulders actually drop. The stress of the journey, the logging track debacle, the slight tension in the car, it all just sort of dissolved in that warmth.

The gite was decorated in that satisfyingly rustic Belgian style, all exposed beams and solid wooden furniture that would survive a nuclear apocalypse. But what struck me most was how the whole place had been arranged around the reality of the season. There were thick wool blankets folded on every chair, a basket of logs beside the stove that was clearly meant to be decorative but which we immediately raided, and in the kitchen, a proper stock of tea and hot chocolate that suggested our host understood November visitors intimately. The windows were small and deep-set, designed for keeping heat in rather than views out, though when I peered through the rain-streaked glass at the darkening fields, I found I did not mind at all. This was not a summer holiday property making do in the off-season. This was somewhere built for exactly this time of year.

My partner, who had not spoken to me for forty minutes, finally broke their silence to observe that the bathroom had underfloor heating. I took this as forgiveness. We spent that first evening doing absolutely nothing of any cultural or educational value whatsoever. We sat by the stove in the kind of comfortable silence that only comes after mild adversity, drinking tea and watching the rain make proper patterns on the windows. I kept thinking I should plan something for tomorrow, should look up opening times for the Citadel of Namur or check if the local museums were operating winter hours. But the season had other ideas. The darkness outside felt less like a barrier and more like a permission slip. Stay in. Be still. Warm your feet. The Ardennes would still be there when we were ready, and anyway, I had mud to wash off the car.