I have never been so grateful for a pair of wellies in all my life, and that is saying something for someone who grew up in the Lake District. The journey to Olpenitz in Schleswig-Holstein had been mostly uneventful, save for my spectacular failure at navigating a German supermarket car park in Neumunster. I had confidently driven our hire car into what I believed was a perfectly normal parking space, only to discover it was reserved for electric vehicles. A very patient man in a VW Golf tapped his horn and gestured at my bonnet with the kind of weary resignation I have come to recognise as distinctly Northern European. I reversed out with what dignity I could muster, which was absolutely none whatsoever.

By the time we reached the holiday home at Olpenitz, I was ready for the soothing embrace of the Schlei fjord and perhaps a small medicinal beer. The property sat nestled among similar wooden houses, all very smart and Scandinavian in feel, with views across the water that made me immediately forgive the sat nav for its earlier tantrums. My partner unloaded the cases while I stood on the decking performing what I can only describe as a weather assessment dance, turning slowly with my face to the wind like a human windsock.

The forecast had promised a mixed bag, which in British terms means prepare for everything including plagues of locusts. I had packed accordingly, or so I thought. We decided to stretch our legs with a walk along the coastal path towards Kappeln, reasoning that fresh air and exercise would erase the memory of my parking humiliation. The path wound through low dunes and salt meadows, the kind of flat, expansive landscape that makes you feel pleasingly small against the sky. Geese passed overhead in ragged formation, honking their disapproval of our pace.

Within twenty minutes, the rain arrived. Not the dramatic downpour of a summer storm, but the steady, determined drizzle that the British soul knows intimately. We pressed on, hoods up, telling ourselves this was character building. The Schlei glittered grey-green beside us, fishing boats bobbing at their moorings. I spotted a heron standing motionless in the reeds, clearly possessing more sense than us.

The weather turned properly theatrical as we approached a small headland. One moment we were damp, the next we were battling a wind that seemed personally offended by our presence. My partner's hat made a bid for freedom, cartwheeling across the marsh before lodging in a gorse bush. I laughed until I tasted rain, then realised my waterproof jacket had developed a leak precisely between my shoulder blades. Of course it had.

We sheltered in a tiny beach shelter, huddled together like seabirds, watching the weather perform its changeable theatre. The sky lightened to pearl grey, then darkened again, then offered a tantalising strip of blue that retreated faster than my parking skills. I found myself thinking about how often I let weather dictate my mood back home, how a grey Tuesday in Manchester could feel like a personal affront. Here, exposed on this modest promontory, it felt different. The elements were not against us; they simply were, vast and indifferent and rather wonderful.

When the rain softened to a whisper, we emerged and turned back, choosing a inland route through farmland and small woods. The ground squelched satisfyingly underfoot. We passed a field of sheep who regarded us with the blank astonishment I reserve for people who run for pleasure. My boots, I noted with pride, remained watertight, unlike my jacket which had apparently surrendered entirely.

That evening, back at the house, we hung our clothes to dry and opened wine with the solemnity of survivors. Through the window, the Schlei lay calm now, silvered by a moon that had no business appearing so serene after such meteorological chaos. I thought about the heron, still standing in the reeds presumably, about the sheep in their field, about the patient man in the car park. Tomorrow we would walk again, perhaps further, perhaps nowhere at all. The weather would do what it pleased. I was learning, slowly, to do the same.