I should have known the satnav was up to no good when it tried to send us through a vineyard. Not along a road beside a vineyard, you understand, but actually through the rows of grapes, as if our little hire car had suddenly sprouted tractor wheels. My other half, Dave, was driving and muttered something about "bloody French technology" whilst I frantically waved the printed directions from the owner, which we had naturally ignored until this point.

We found Carnas eventually, tucked down a dusty track near Saint-Privat-de-Champclos, and I will admit that my first thought was not charitable. The heat hit us like opening an oven door, and there was Dave, already in his socks and sandals, unpacking the walking boots I had insisted we bring. "Forecast said rain," I reminded him, rather smugly. He just raised an eyebrow and gestured at the cloudless sky, the cicadas screaming their approval of my poor packing decisions.

The gite itself was lovely, all honey-coloured stone and shuttered windows, with a terrace that looked out towards scrubby hillsides dotted with holm oaks. I had imagined myself there with a glass of local wine, perhaps sketching. Instead I spent the first hour hunting for the key safe, which the owner had described as "obvious" and which turned out to be hidden behind a rosemary bush that I am convinced had grown several metres since the instructions were written. Dave found it eventually, of course. He has a gift for these things, probably from years of finding my glasses when they are on my head.

We had planned to walk the following morning, an ambitious route I had mapped out from a guidebook purchased in a moment of optimism at Stansted Airport. The trail began at a nearby hamlet, winding up through garrigue scrub towards limestone ridges with apparently spectacular views. I had packed sandwiches, proper walking socks, and a waterproof jacket that I now suspected would remain as pristine as the day I bought it.

The weather had other ideas. I woke to the sound of rain on terracotta tiles, that particular drumming that speaks of proper, settled wetness rather than a brief shower. Dave peered out, remarkably cheerful for someone whose sandals were now definitively inappropriate. "Still up for it?" he asked, already pulling on his boots with the enthusiasm of a man who has spent thirty years commuting in Manchester and considers drizzle a personal friend.

The garrigue smelled extraordinary in the rain, all wild thyme and wet earth, though the path quickly became something more closely resembling a stream. My "waterproof" jacket, purchased in a sale and never previously tested, proved itself enthusiastically permeable. Within half an hour I was soaked in a very specific pattern that suggested the seams had given up entirely. Dave, naturally, had borrowed his son's expensive Gore-Tex affair and remained irritatingly dry, offering commentary on the "atmospheric" conditions whilst I squelched behind him.

We abandoned the ridge walk at a small stone shelter, huddled there with our soggy sandwiches as the rain intensified to something biblical. I found myself laughing, which surprised me. There is something about being properly, unavoidably wet that strips away any pretence of dignity, and I realised I had been trying rather too hard to have the "right" sort of holiday, the sort with perfect weather and picturesque moments. Instead I had a dripping nose, sandwiches that tasted faintly of jacket fabric, and a husband who was using a stick to try and clear a drainage channel with the serious concentration of a civil engineer.

The rain did not let up for two days. We adapted, as the British must. Short walks became our rhythm, setting out in brief windows of grey dryness, exploring the immediate lanes and woodland paths near Carnas rather than seeking grand vistas. We found a ruined bergerie where we sheltered and ate pain au chocolat from the boulangerie in Barjac. We walked through oak woods where the light was green and submarine, emerging with muddy boots to views of the Cevennes foothills half-hidden in shifting cloud.

On the third morning I woke to actual sunshine, the kind that steams moisture from stone and makes everything look newly painted. We tried our ridge walk again, and it was beautiful, all that folded landscape of vineyards and distant hills, the air scrubbed clean and smelling of pine resin. But I think I preferred the wet version, if I am honest. There was something about that first sodden afternoon, laughing in the stone shelter, that felt more genuinely ours than any postcard perfection could have managed.

I still have the jacket. It lives in the back of the cupboard now, a reminder that the best stories rarely come from the days that go to plan.