The ferry from Stavanger dropped us off at a tiny quayside that looked like it had been sketched quickly by someone who had never seen a quayside before, and I immediately managed to trip over my own wheelie case while trying to photograph a seagull. Classic. My partner laughed so hard she nearly dropped her coffee, and that coffee was precious. It was mid-April, that awkward Norwegian spring moment when winter has technically clocked off but keeps popping back in like a colleague who forgot their umbrella.

We had booked a week at Bergsagel, one of those traditional Rogaland cottages that the NOVASOL site had shown looking impossibly snug against a backdrop of still-snowy hills. The drive from the ferry took us through a landscape that could not make up its mind. Patches of bare brown earth steamed faintly in weak sunshine, while just metres away, drifts of old snow huddled in the lee of stone walls like grumpy pensioners refusing to leave the pub. The birch trees were bare still, their branches making that particular grey-brown lace against the sky that you only get in Scandinavian spring. I kept saying "look at that" every thirty seconds until my partner threatened to confiscate my phone.

The cottage sat where a small valley opened toward a fjord arm, and arriving there in April meant we had the place in a state of seasonal in-between that felt almost private. The owner had left the key in the usual wooden box, but getting to it required wading through snow that came halfway up my wellies. I had optimistically packed walking shoes. My partner, who had actually read the weather forecast, watched from the cleared gravel path with what I can only describe as affectionate pity.

Inside, Bergsagel smelled of wood smoke and something I eventually identified as dried meadow flowers hung from the low ceiling beams. The heating had been left on low, thank goodness, and the warmth hit us with that particular embrace of a building that has been waiting for occupants. Large windows faced south, and because the April sun sits so low and lingers so long in this latitude, the afternoon light flooded in at a dramatic slant, picking out every grain in the wooden walls and making the simple furniture look like something from a design magazine. I immediately took seventeen photographs. They all looked worse than the reality, which seems to be a law of physics in Norway.

The seasonal limbo defined everything those first hours. We found a pair of the owner's snowshoes in the shed and tried to walk to a nearby viewpoint, but the snow had developed that spring crust that supports you for three steps then drops you through to your thigh. My partner, lighter and more graceful, made it perhaps fifty metres before suffering the same indignity. We retreated to the cottage laughing and damp, lit the wood burner, and watched the light fade slowly across the valley. At that latitude in April, dusk takes its time, a prolonged bruising of the sky from pale blue down through rose to a deep violet that seems to hold off true darkness for hours.

I had brought a stack of books imagining cosy fireside evenings, but the extended daylight kept us alert and restless in that particular spring way. We would find ourselves at ten in the evening still in our boots, checking if the snow had softened further or if new patches of ground had appeared. The owner had left a note saying the walking paths would be proper muddy soon, and we could see this transition happening almost in real time, meltwater streaming down every slight gradient, the sound of running water everywhere as winter's hoard released itself.

That first evening, we cooked simple food from supplies bought in Stavanger and ate at the kitchen table while the last light finally drained from the sky around half past ten. The wood burner ticked and settled. Outside, the temperature was dropping enough to crust the snow again, resetting it for tomorrow's misadventures. I remember thinking that there was something honest about visiting a place in its awkward season, when it is not trying to be anything for tourists, when you must accept what the weather offers and find your pleasures within those constraints. My wellies stood steaming by the door, ridiculous and essential. The seagull photograph, I discovered later, was mostly of my own thumb. Some holidays begin with perfection; this one began with a stumble and a soaking, and I would not have changed a single thing.