I have never been so grateful to see a wooden post with a hand-painted number on it in all my life. Three hours of driving from Alesund, two of them through what I can only describe as "aggressive drizzle," and there it was: Oydegard, our cabin for the week, perched on the hillside above Vanylven like it had grown straight out of the rock.

The journey had already provided what I will generously call "character building." My partner had entrusted me with the shopping, a decision we would both come to regret. Somewhere between the airport and the first fjord, I had managed to leave an entire bag of groceries on the roof of the car. We discovered this only when a passing motorist flashed us, and I watched our dinner for three nights sail gracefully into a ditch. The salmon survived. My dignity did not.

But September in More og Romsdal has a way of forgiving your sins. The light was doing that extraordinary thing it does at this latitude, all low and golden and slightly apologetic, as if the sun knows it is about to abandon you for the winter and is trying to make amends. The birch trees had turned the colour of old pennies, and the mountain ash berries were so aggressively red they looked almost rude against the grey-green of the spruce. I stood there with my single bag of surviving groceries, breathing air that tasted of cold water and woodsmoke, and felt something in my chest loosen for the first time in months.

The cabin itself was exactly the sort of honest Norwegian construction I had hoped for. Red clapboard, white trim, a small terrace that looked down toward the Vanylvsfjorden. What struck me immediately was how thoroughly the season had colonised the place. The outdoor furniture was stacked and wrapped, the barbecue under a tarp that had collected a small pond of rainwater. Someone, presumably the owner, had left a pile of birch logs under the eaves, bark peeling like old wallpaper, perfectly seasoned for the fires we would need now that the evenings had turned properly cold. A single rowan branch had dropped its leaves across the doorstep, a wet yellow carpet that squelched satisfyingly under my boot.

Inside, the season announced itself through smell. That particular closed-up-cabin scent of dried wood and wool and something faintly mineral, like stone that has been rained on for months and is now slowly drying. The windows were small and deeply set, framing the fjord like a series of postcards that changed hourly as the weather moved through. We arrived in daylight, but by four in the afternoon the shadows had pooled in the valleys and the first lamps were coming on in distant houses across the water, tiny warm squares against the darkening hillside.

I built a fire that evening with more enthusiasm than skill, using far too much paper and producing a lot of smoke and very little heat. My partner opened wine and said nothing. Eventually the logs caught properly, and we sat with the doors open to the terrace, wrapped in blankets that smelled faintly of mothballs, watching our breath mingle with the woodsmoke in the cold air. The fjord had gone the colour of slate, and somewhere out on the water a small boat was making its way home, running lights steady against the gathering dark.

That first night I slept better than I had in years, woke to rain on the roof and the realisation that I had forgotten to buy coffee. September here does not forgive everything, apparently. But standing barefoot on the cold boards, watching the morning mist rise from the water in slow, deliberate columns, I found I did not much mind. The season had already begun its work on me, stripping something away, leaving something else exposed and slightly raw and surprisingly welcome.