The drive up to Asenfjord was going brilliantly until I realised I'd been following the satnav's cheerful instructions for a solid twenty minutes with the fuel light blinking like a frantic lighthouse. I'd been so busy admiring the birch trees turning gold along the E6 that I'd forgotten petrol stations become somewhat theoretical once you leave Trondheim behind. We limped into a petrol pump in Levanger with the sort of relief usually reserved for lottery wins, and I stood there in the October drizzle, filling up and questioning my life choices while my other half sat in the car pretending not to know me.

October in Nord-Trondelag does not mess about. The light has already started its retreat by mid-afternoon, and the air carries that particular damp cold that seeps through supposedly waterproof jackets and into your very soul. We arrived at the property as the sky was doing that dramatic Scandinavian thing, all bruised purples and sudden streaks of orange where the sun was giving up for the day. The fjord lay flat and grey, utterly indifferent to our late arrival.

The thing about visiting this part of Norway in autumn is that the landscape feels almost aggressively honest. There is no summer softness to hide behind, no midnight sun to disorient your body clock into thinking you've got endless time. Everything is stripped back and slightly severe. The trees along the shoreline had dropped enough leaves to make the paths treacherous, and the grass had that beaten-down look of something that knows worse weather is coming and has essentially given up until spring.

I had grand plans of sitting on the terrace with a coffee, watching the water, perhaps looking contemplative in an outdoor magazine sort of way. Reality involved me in two jumpers and a borrowed wool hat that made my head itch, clutching a mug and retreating indoors after approximately four minutes. The wind coming off Asenfjorden has a directness to it in October, a complete lack of interest in your comfort or your aesthetic aspirations.

The property itself, though, understood the season perfectly. The heating had been on, the windows were tight against the drafts, and there was something deeply satisfying about being inside while the weather did its thing outside. We cooked dinner with the darkness complete by half past six, the kitchen warm with steam from boiling potatoes and the sort of simple fish dish that feels appropriate when you can practically see the water from the hob.

What struck me most was how the autumn timing changed the rhythm of everything. In summer, I imagine, you would be out constantly, hiking, boating, squeezing every drop from the long days. In October, the shortness of the daylight forces a different pace. You become slightly nocturnal, slightly inward. We found ourselves reading more, talking more, occasionally just staring out at the fjord as the light faded and the first stars appeared in that enormous northern sky.

There was a moment on the second evening when the cloud cleared unexpectedly and the temperature dropped sharply. I went outside to bring in some firewood and the cold hit my lungs like a physical thing. But the sky was alive with stars, and somewhere across the water a light moved slowly, a boat heading home before the weather turned again. I stood there longer than was sensible, freezing and slightly awed, aware that this particular experience belonged entirely to this particular week of the year.

The morning we left, frost had formed on the car and the world had gone briefly silver. Winter was clearly queueing up, impatient for its turn. I scraped the windscreen with a credit card because I am fundamentally unprepared for life, and we drove south with the heating blasting and the fjord disappearing behind us in the rearview mirror.

I would go back in summer, certainly, to see the place in its easier, more accommodating mood. But there was something about that autumn visit, the way the season demanded you pay attention, the way it stripped everything down to essentials, that I suspect will stay with me longer than a more comfortable trip might have done.