The journey to Noordwijk began with the sort of optimism that only a person who has not yet checked the weather forecast can muster. I had packed for spring in the Netherlands, which in my mind meant tulips, gentle breezes, and perhaps a light cardigan. The reality, as I discovered somewhere past Rotterdam with rain drumming against the windscreen like an overenthusiastic jazz quartet, was that April in Southern Holland has its own agenda entirely.

My small mishap came at the petrol station in Leiden, where I confidently filled the hire car with diesel, patted the roof in a self-congratulatory manner, and then spent twenty minutes searching for my sunglasses. They were on my head. They had been on my head throughout. A woman at the next pump watched this performance with the patient expression of someone who has seen many British tourists discover their own limitations. I gave her a cheerful wave, which she did not return.

By the time I reached the holiday home, the afternoon light had turned that particular silver-grey that coastal towns do so well. Noordwijk sits right on the North Sea, and the North Sea in late April is not interested in your holiday plans. It simply exists, grey and magnificent and indifferent, rolling onto the beach with the steady rhythm of a creature that has been doing this for millennia and will continue long after we have all gone home.

The property itself, a proper Dutch coastal house with that sensible Scandinavian-influenced design, felt immediately like a refuge. I dumped my entirely inappropriate luggage in the hallway and stood at the large windows watching the weather make its statement. The garden, which in summer photographs had looked inviting with its terrace and barbecue area, now presented itself as a windswept stage where a single brave daffodil performed a solitary dance. I felt an immediate kinship with that daffodil.

What struck me most, that first evening, was how the season reshaped everything. The beach, visible from the upstairs window, stretched empty for miles. In July this would be crowded with Dutch families in their organised rows, but now it belonged to dog walkers in waterproof trousers and the occasional serious cyclist battling the headwind. The famous boulevard, with its restaurants and shops, operated at half-speed. Some places had not yet opened for the season, their shutters down like sleeping eyes. Others served hot chocolate with the resigned air of establishments that knew their proper business was ice cream and cold beer, but were making the best of things.

I walked to the shore after unpacking, because one must, and the wind performed its usual trick of making me feel simultaneously ridiculous and alive. My inadequate cardigan flapped like a flag of surrender. The sand was that compacted, damp variety that squeaks underfoot, and the sea smelled of salt and something else, something green and growing beneath the cold. A seal head popped up in the surf, regarded me with what I interpreted as amusement, and disappeared again.

Back at the house, I made tea with the fervour of someone who has earned it through minor suffering. The heating system, efficient and Dutch, clicked on with reassuring competence. I sat with my cup and watched the light fade, that long northern twilight that April brings, the sky shifting through shades of pearl and lavender before settling into a darkness that still carried the memory of the sea.

That first night, I slept better than I had in months. The wind rattled the windows in a comforting way, and somewhere a clock struck the hour with the unhurried confidence of a country that has managed timekeeping for centuries. I woke to more grey skies and the distant sound of waves, and felt something unexpected: contentment. The season had forced a slower pace, had stripped away the possibility of doing too much, of packing the days with activity. There was only the walk, the observation, the retreat indoors, the simple pleasure of warmth after cold.

I thought about that daffodil in the garden, still performing its dance when I looked out that morning. There is something to be said for showing up before the crowd, for enduring the weather that others will wait to avoid. The Netherlands in April does not perform for you. It simply is, and you must meet it on its own terms. I was beginning to think I rather liked that arrangement.