I should have known the satnav was up to no good when it tried to send us through a field outside Caen. Three hours from Portsmouth, slightly green around the gills from the ferry, and there we were arguing with a woman who sounded increasingly passive-aggressive about our life choices. "Turn around where possible," she said, as if we had chosen to park in a tractor rut surrounded by confused-looking cows.

We found the turning eventually, a narrow lane between hedgerows so thick with June growth that the car barely squeezed through. My partner was doing that thing where he grips the steering wheel and breathes through his nose. I was doing that thing where I pretend to be very interested in my phone and not at all responsible for navigation.

The Vassy itself appeared suddenly, a proper stone farmhouse with a slate roof and shutters that had seen better centuries. The key was in the lockbox as promised, though getting it out required the dexterity of a safecracker and the patience of a fisherman. I managed to trap my thumb, drop the code sheet in a puddle, and swear loudly enough to startle a pigeon from the eaves. A promising start to our week of rural peace.

Inside smelled of woodsmoke and old plaster, that particular scent of French country houses that no candle company has ever successfully bottled. The floors sloped. The stairs creaked with theatrical enthusiasm. I loved it immediately, in that way you love things before you have discovered all their quirks. The boiler, for instance, which we would later find speaks only in cryptic error codes. The window in the master bedroom that opens inward with enough force to nearly decapitate the unwary.

We had planned to walk, you see. That was the entire point. Normandy in late spring, the rolling countryside around the Vassy, the paths through farmland and woodland that the property details had promised. I had packed my serious walking boots, the ones that cost more than my first car and have never quite broken in properly. I had a laminated OS map, which I waved at my partner with the confidence of someone who has never actually navigated by map successfully.

The first morning dawned grey and still, that particular French grey that looks soft and atmospheric in photographs and merely damp when you are standing in it. We set off toward what the map called a "sentier de randonnee," which sounded properly adventurous. The path started promisingly, between fields of young wheat that rippled satisfyingly in the breeze. I was already composing my smug post-walk social media update.

Then the sky, which had been merely uncooperative, turned actively hostile. The rain came down with the sudden enthusiasm of a tap turned full on, the sort of rain that finds every gap in your allegedly waterproof jacket. We were perhaps two miles out, nowhere near shelter, squelching along a track that had transformed from firm path to something resembling porridge. My serious boots proved excellent at collecting mud, less excellent at keeping feet dry. My partner, who had sensibly worn old trainers, was faring marginally better, though his expression suggested our relationship was undergoing a stress test.

We found a barn eventually, abandoned and slightly ominous, and stood under its partial roof watching the weather perform its full repertoire. Hail joined the rain for variety. The wind found new directions to blow from. I thought about our carefully planned walking holiday and laughed, slightly hysterically, at the absurdity of British people travelling to France to experience weather indistinguishable from a particularly grim Tuesday in Cumbria.

The storm passed eventually, as storms do, leaving a landscape transformed. The wheat fields glistened. The air smelled of wet earth and something greener, something alive. We squelched back to the Vassy, passing a farmer in a tractor who waved with the resigned sympathy of someone who has watched many optimistic tourists learn about Norman weather.

That evening we built a fire in the stone fireplace, using wood from the pile outside that proved to be various degrees of seasoned. The smoke found every crack in the ancient chimney and distributed itself evenly through the ground floor. We sat with wine and cheese from the market in Bayeux, feet steaming gently in front of the flames, and planned tomorrow's walk with the particular optimism of people who have learned nothing whatsoever.