I have never been so grateful for a cup of tea in my entire life, and I say that as someone who once queued forty minutes at a railway station kiosk during a points failure at Peterborough. The journey to our cottage in Rubercy had been one of those classic British-in-France affairs: ferry from Portsmouth to Caen, then a rental Peugeot that smelled faintly of Gauloises and regret. Somewhere between Bayeux and our destination, I became overconfident with the sat nav and directed us down what I can only describe as a farm track masquerading as a road. The hedgerows closed in like nosy neighbours, branches scratching the paintwork, and when we finally emerged into a clearing, there was the cottage - and there, unfortunately, was also the drainage ditch I had just reversed into.

My partner maintains a diplomatic silence to this day about the fifteen minutes I spent tramping through November mud, attempting to wedge a wheelie bin lid under the front tyre for traction. The local farmer who eventually towed us out with his tractor said nothing either, merely raised his eyebrows in that particularly Gallic way that conveys an entire novel of judgment. By the time we actually entered the cottage, I was soaked through, my dignity in tatters, and my wellies making that squelching noise that follows you around like a disappointed ghost.

But oh, the cottage itself. It was late November, and the place had been prepared for the season with a thoughtfulness that almost made me weep. A fire was laid in the stone fireplace, logs stacked in the basket beside it, the kindling arranged with geometric precision. The owners had left the heating on low, so the rooms carried that particular warmth of old stone slowly releasing stored heat. Every window showed the garden in its autumn undress: bare fruit trees, the last roses clinging on with determined shabbiness, lawns gone slightly mossy and melancholic.

I stood in the kitchen, dripping on the terracotta tiles, and noticed how the low November light fell across the wooden table in a thin, honeyed stripe. In summer, this room would be flooded with brightness, doors thrown open to the garden, the table laden with tomatoes and peaches from the market. Now it felt like a refuge, a place to fold yourself into while the year wound down. The seasonal silence outside was profound - no lawnmowers, no children shrieking in paddling pools, just the occasional crow calling from the bare branches and the distant lowing of cattle being brought in for winter.

We stayed in that evening, too exhausted and too muddy to attempt the restaurant in nearby Bayeux. I made an omelette with the eggs left for us, some local Camembert that had ripened to that perfect runny stage that only November seems to achieve, and we ate by the fire I had finally managed to light without setting off any smoke alarms. The flames cast jumping shadows on the whitewashed walls, and through the window I could see our breath misting the glass from inside, the darkness outside absolute and unhurried.

There is something about visiting Normandy in late autumn that strips away any pretence of holiday performance. You are not there to be seen, to tick off attractions, to acquire a tan. You are there because the land itself has slowed, and it permits you, graciously, to slow with it. I fell asleep that first night to the sound of rain beginning against the shutters, too tired to care, too content to mind. The ditch, the mud, the farmer's eyebrows - all of it dissolved into the particular peace of a place that knows exactly what season it is, and sees no reason to apologise for it.