The drive up from Aalborg had been going suspiciously well, which in my experience is always a warning sign. Satnav behaving, traffic light, even a decent playlist on the go. Then, precisely three miles from Lokken, I missed the turning for the holiday home and found myself bumping down a farm track towards what I initially thought was a charmingly rustic shortcut. It was not. I reversed back past a very judgmental-looking herd of cattle, one of which I swear shook its head at me. By the time I reached the proper gravel drive of the Lokken cottage, I was forty minutes late, slightly sweaty, and had developed an irrational grudge against bovines.

The cottage itself made up for it immediately. Traditional North Jutland style, all whitewashed walls and that satisfyingly solid Danish craftsmanship. I dumped my bags with the theatrical exhaustion of someone who had definitely not just sat in a car for several hours, and headed straight out. The plan was simple: walk the beach, clear my head, pretend the cow incident never happened.

Lokken's beach is the sort that makes you forgive your satnav everything. Vast expanse of pale sand, those characteristic striped bathing huts in faded colours, and the North Sea doing its perpetual grey-green shimmer. I walked north with the wind at my back, feeling rather pleased with myself. This was proper coastal hiking territory, flat and open, with the dunes rolling alongside. I had ambitions of reaching the lighthouse at Rubjerg Knude, that famous shifting sand dune that slowly swallowed the old beacon. About four miles, I reckoned. Easy.

British weather, I have decided, travels with British people like an anxious relative. I had checked the forecast that morning: clear, mild, slight breeze. What I got, approximately forty minutes into my stride, was a horizontal rain that seemed to originate from somewhere near Norway. The sky went from optimistic blue to furious charcoal in roughly the time it took me to check my phone. I turned around, already laughing at my own optimism, and began the trudge back. The wind was now properly in my face, sand stinging my legs, and I had that particular British realisation that I was underdressed for literally everything.

I took shelter in one of the old wooden bathing huts, huddled against the door with rain drumming overhead. There I stayed for twenty minutes, watching the weather perform its dramatic transformation. A Danish couple walked past in proper waterproofs, nodded politely, and carried on as if this were perfectly normal. Which of course it was. I felt briefly like a child who had turned up to a grown-up party in the wrong clothes.

The rain passed, as these things do, and I walked back through damp sand that now held perfect mirror pools of sky. The light had changed completely, everything silvered and strange. I stopped at a beach cafe near the town, ordered a coffee I could barely feel my fingers around, and watched a dog chase gulls with more commitment than I had shown to anything in months.

That evening I walked again, properly kitted out this time, along the coastal path south towards the plantation. The sunset did that lingering Scandinavian thing, hanging around for hours in soft pinks and greys. I thought about my abortive lighthouse mission, the cow, the inadequate jacket. There is something humbling about weather, I decided, standing there with salt still in my hair. It does not care about your plans. It simply arrives, performs, and leaves you to adapt.

I walked back to the cottage in proper darkness, stars coming out in that clear northern way, already plotting which waterproof to buy tomorrow and which walk to attempt next. The lighthouse could wait. I had sand in my shoes and absolutely no regrets.