I have never been so grateful for a left-hand drive car as I was when we finally spotted the sign for Fjellsaetra, though that gratitude came rather late in the proceedings. The journey from Alesund had been straightforward enough, a pleasant cruise along the E39 with the fjords glittering beside us and my partner doing an admirable job of not mentioning that I had packed entirely the wrong footwear. The trouble began when I decided, with the confidence of a person who has never navigated Norwegian mountain roads, that I could handle the final stretch up to the cabin myself.

Reader, I could not. Within five minutes I had reversed into a ditch. Not dramatically, you understand. Just a gentle, almost affectionate slide into a mossy gully that felt less like a car accident and more like the landscape giving us a hug. A passing farmer in a tractor pulled us out with the wearied patience of someone who has rescued many overconfident tourists before us. I waved cheerfully as if this had been my plan all along. My partner said nothing. She did not need to.

The cabin itself, when we finally arrived properly, made every moment worthwhile. Fjellsaetra sits in that particular Norwegian way of being both modest and magnificent, a wooden house clinging to the hillside with views that make you forget your own name. The Sykkylven valley spread below us, green and gold in the late afternoon, with the fjord catching the light like someone had scattered broken glass across the water. I stood on the terrace with a cup of tea that I had not yet drunk, forgetting it entirely while I stared. The air smelled of pine and something else, something clean that I do not have a word for in English.

We had come prepared for walking, you see. Proper Ordnance Survey habits, laminated maps and packed lunches and that particular British determination to march about in all weathers. The weather, however, had other ideas. The forecast had promised mild conditions, perhaps a spot of drizzle, nothing a decent waterproof could not handle. What we got was glorious sunshine, the kind that turns mountain paths into something almost Mediterranean and makes the coastal trails around Sykkylven feel like a different country entirely.

I am not complaining, exactly. There is something faintly absurd about grumbling that your Norwegian holiday is too sunny. But we had planned serious hikes, the sort where you return pleasantly exhausted and justified in eating an enormous dinner. Instead we found ourselves wandering the lower coastal paths in t-shirts, stopping constantly to admire wildflowers I could not identify and to watch small boats puttering across the fjord. The heat haze made the distant mountains soft and blue, like a watercolour someone had left out in the rain.

On our second day we attempted a more ambitious route towards the Storfjord coastline, reasoning that elevation would bring cooler air. It did not. What it brought was more sun, more views that demanded we stop and admire them, and a growing realisation that my partner had been right about the walking boots. My trainers, chosen for their lightness, were perfectly adequate for a stroll but increasingly traitorous on rocky descents. I developed what I can only describe as a philosophical relationship with my own blisters.

We adapted, as one must. The coastal paths became our friends, winding through birch woods and opening suddenly onto rocky outcrops where we could sit and dangle our legs above the water. We found a small beach near the water's edge, not sandy exactly but smooth stones that clicked pleasantly underfoot, and spent an afternoon there with cheese and flatbread, watching the light change on the fjord. A local passed with his dog, nodded at us as if this were perfectly normal behaviour, and continued on his way.

There is something about that particular Norwegian light, the way it lingers and shifts, that makes you lose track of ambition. We had intended to cover distance, to tick off viewpoints and return with aching legs and a sense of accomplishment. Instead we moved slowly, following our noses and the occasional red paint marks on rocks, letting the weather dictate our pace rather than fighting it. I am still not certain whether this counts as a success or a surrender. Perhaps it is both.

On our final morning I woke early and walked alone to a viewpoint we had discovered by accident, a rocky shelf perhaps twenty minutes from the cabin. The valley lay misty below, the sun just clearing the eastern ridge, and for a moment I felt something like the person I had intended to be on this holiday. Then a bee investigated my ear with excessive enthusiasm and I retreated, laughing, back to the cabin and coffee.

We left the next day, the little car now wiser to Norwegian gradients, my blisters healing nicely, my partner having graciously declined to mention the ditch incident again. I still have not bought proper walking boots. Some lessons, apparently, require more than one Norwegian holiday to learn.