I have never been so grateful for a pair of waterproof trousers in my life, and I say that as someone who once wore them to a wedding by mistake. The journey to Cava de' Tirreni had been going so well up to that point. Naples airport, hire car sorted, even remembered to drive on the right for a full forty minutes before my brain reverted to British autopilot and I nearly gave a local priest the fright of his life at a roundabout.

The property sat up in the hills above the town, one of those proper Italian stone houses with terracotta pots everywhere and a view that made you want to write poetry despite having no talent for it whatsoever. I arrived in late afternoon sunshine, absolutely buzzing, wheelie case rattling behind me like an excited terrier. This was going to be the walking holiday to end all walking holidays. I had maps. I had boots. I had that smug sense of preparedness that practically guarantees disaster.

The owner, a lovely woman called Rosa who communicated mainly through emphatic gestures and the occasional English word shouted for emphasis, showed me the terrace and pointed at the mountains behind us. "Trekking," she said, making walking motions with her fingers. "Bellissimo. Tomorrow, maybe rain." I nodded cheerfully, having checked my weather app that morning which promised nothing but golden sunshine for the foreseeable future. British weather apps lie constantly, so naturally I assumed Italian ones possessed some Mediterranean integrity. Reader, they do not.

I woke to what I can only describe as the sound of someone emptying a bathtub directly onto the roof. The mountains had vanished entirely behind a wall of grey that looked almost personal in its hostility. Still, I am British. A bit of rain never stopped anyone. I pulled on my boots, packed my rucksack with the obsessive precision of someone who once did Duke of Edinburgh, and marched out into what turned out to be a monsoon.

The path up toward Monte Avvocata started pleasantly enough, winding through lemon groves that smelled absolutely incredible even as the water dripped down my neck. Within twenty minutes I was soaked through in places I did not know could get soaked. My waterproof jacket, purchased in a hurry from a shop that also sold fishing tackle and pet supplies, proved about as effective as a paper bag. The trousers though, those magnificent, rustling, deeply unfashionable trousers, kept my legs almost completely dry. I looked ridiculous. I felt triumphant. There is probably a life lesson in that.

By the time I reached the first viewpoint, the rain had graduated to something biblical. The view I had hiked forty minutes for consisted entirely of cloud and the occasional blurred shape that might have been a goat or a small boulder. I stood there, water streaming off my hood, and laughed properly for the first time in months. It was so utterly absurd. Here I was in Campania, land of Amalfi coast glamour and Instagram perfection, looking like a bin bag that had gained sentience.

I turned back, squelching every step of the way, and spent the afternoon on Rosa's covered terrace drinking her homemade limoncello while she told me, through elaborate mime, that only English people go walking in this weather. She had a point. The British obsession with pressing on regardless, with treating discomfort as character building, suddenly seemed less admirable and more genuinely unhinged.

The next three days brought more of the same, weather-wise. I adapted, as we do. Short walks to the town itself, wandering the covered arcades of Corso Umberto I when the heavens opened, which was often. Cava de' Tirreni has these lovely medieval porticoes that suddenly become the best feature in the world when you are trying not to get drenched. I drank extraordinary amounts of coffee, ate pastries I still dream about, and developed a genuinely emotional relationship with my waterproof trousers.

On the fourth morning, I woke to actual sunshine. The mountains reappeared like a magician's reveal. I practically sprinted up that path to Monte Avvocata, boots still damp from three days of abuse, and finally got my view. It was worth every miserable, soggy moment. The whole coastline spread out below, Salerno glinting in the distance, the sea that impossible blue that makes you understand why people paint things.

I sat on a rock, legs dangling, and thought about how the ruined walk had become the better story. How my stubbornness had given me something funnier and more real than any perfect itinerary could have managed. The British weather obsession, exported to Italy and defeated by Italian weather, had somehow become the whole point. I still send Rosa postcards. She still probably thinks I am completely mad.