I have never been so relieved to see a wooden cabin in my life, and that includes the time I got caught in a hailstorm near Aviemore. The drive from Oslo to Valdres had been straightforward enough, or so I thought, until I followed my sat nav's enthusiastic suggestion to take what it optimistically called a "scenic shortcut" through the mountains. Two hours later, I was bouncing along a gravel track that grew narrower with every bend, wondering if I would be starring in my own Norwegian folk tale, the one where the foolish tourist disappears into the wilderness never to be seen again.

The mishap, because there is always one with me, came when I finally spotted what I thought was the turning for the cabin. I swung the hire car left with something approaching triumph, only to find myself in a farmyard staring at a very confused sheep and an even more confused farmer. Turns out I had mistaken a red post box for the property marker. In my defence, they were roughly the same shape, and I had been squinting at road signs in a language that still looks to me like someone has dropped a Scrabble set. The farmer, bless him, pointed me back the right way with the patient expression of a man who has redirected many lost Britons in his time.

When I actually found Valdres/Ron, tucked among birch trees with the lake glinting beyond, I stood there for a solid minute just breathing. The air smelled of pine and woodsmoke and something else I could not name, something clean that made my London lungs feel slightly overwhelmed by the novelty. The cabin itself was proper Scandinavian simplicity, all timber and angles, with a deck that practically begged for a morning coffee. I dumped my bags with the reckless abandon of someone who has spent six hours convinced they would be sleeping in a sheep field.

I had arrived with grand walking plans, naturally. The Valdres region is criss-crossed with trails, and I had researched them with the obsessive energy of a woman who owns too many walking socks. The lake path, the forest loop, the gentle climb to the viewpoint, I had them all mapped in my head. The weather, however, had other ideas. The warm spell that had persuaded me to book this trip in the first place had turned positively Mediterranean by Norwegian standards, and by my second morning the thermometer on the cabin wall was showing twenty-six degrees. In central Norway. In what was technically still spring.

I set out for my planned coastal walk along the lake shore with two litres of water, a hat that made me look like an allotment enthusiast, and the stubborn determination that has got me into trouble before. Within forty minutes I was a puddle. The path was beautiful, no question, winding between granite outcrops and patches of wildflowers I did not recognise, but the sun bounced off every surface with what felt like personal animosity. I found a flat rock and sat there, watching a family of ducks paddle past with the cool indifference of creatures who actually belong in the water.

That was the moment of gentle self-reflection, if you want to call it that. I sat on my rock, sweating gently into my sensible walking trousers, and realised how often I do this to myself. I plan the perfect trip in my head, the one where I stride through stunning landscapes like someone in an outdoor clothing catalogue, and then reality arrives with its inconvenient weather and its duck families and its reminders that I am, in fact, a middle-aged woman from Croydon who does not handle heat well.

I abandoned the ambitious circuit and turned back, and you know what? The shorter route was lovely. I took my time, I paddled in the lake like a child, I watched clouds that actually looked like things instead of the grey smudges I am used to. The warm weather had forced a change of plans, and the changed plans turned out to be exactly what I needed. That evening I sat on the deck with a beer from the local shop, watching the sun drop behind the hills, and felt something unknot in my chest that I had not realised was tight.

The next morning I tried again, earlier this time, and managed a proper forest hike before the heat built. The trail led through birch woodland to a small clearing with a view back toward the lake, and I sat there for an hour doing absolutely nothing productive, which is still a skill I am working on. The warm weather stayed with me all week, shifting my routines, making me slower and more deliberate, more willing to stop and look.

I left Valdres with slightly sunburned shoulders, a phone full of rock photos, and the reluctant admission that sometimes getting it slightly wrong, whether with directions or with plans, is exactly how you end up somewhere worth being.