I have never been particularly gifted at reading ferry timetables, a fact that became embarrassingly clear somewhere outside Kristiansand when I realised the "shortcut" I had smugly plotted would have required a boat that departed three hours earlier. My partner sat in the passenger seat, scrolling on her phone with the quiet patience of someone who had seen this coming. We were bound for a cabin in Drangedal, Telemark, and I had promised her coastal walks, warm summer evenings, and a general air of Scandinavian competence. So far I had delivered a petrol station hot dog and a forty-minute detour through somebody's farm.

The approach to the cabin did much to restore my dignity. The road wound through pine forest that seemed to press in from both sides, then suddenly opened onto a view of the water that made me actually say "blimey" out loud, which I never do. The property sat where a small inlet fingered into the land, the sort of place where you half expect to spot a heron standing about looking judgmental. The cabin itself was painted that particular deep red that Norwegians have perfected, with white trim and a deck that faced west, presumably for the purpose of watching the sun drop into the fjord while feeling smug about your life choices.

I had packed for walking with the enthusiasm of someone who owns too many technical fabrics and not enough common sense. Waterproof trousers, gaiters, a hat with a flap for the neck. My partner had brought a sun dress and a pair of trainers she refers to as her "good ones." This disparity would become relevant.

The first morning dawned warm and still, the kind of weather that makes a British person immediately suspicious. We set out along a coastal path I had identified from a map that appeared to have been drawn by someone who valued artistic impression over topographical accuracy. The trail hugged the shoreline, winding through birch scrub and over slabs of granite that had been worn smooth by ice and time. Every so often the trees would part and there would be the water, green-blue and scattered with small islands that looked like they had been dropped there for decorative purposes.

I was in my element, pointing out edible plants I could not actually identify and commenting on the quality of the light. My partner walked ahead, occasionally stopping to photograph a mushroom or a particularly self-satisfied looking rock. The path climbed gradually, offering views back toward the cabin and out across the wider water, and I found myself doing that thing where you narrate your own experience as if presenting a documentary. "The hiker," I heard myself say, "pauses to appreciate the silence." My partner threw a pine cone at me.

By midday the temperature had climbed to something that felt almost Mediterranean, at least by the standards of someone raised in the Midlands. We found a flat rock and ate the sandwiches we had packed, watching a small boat putter past with a dog in the bow wearing what appeared to be a life jacket. I felt a profound and unearned sense of wellbeing. This, I thought, is what walking holidays are meant to be. The sun, the water, the gentle exertion. I may have said something aloud about " reconnecting with nature." My partner was very kind not to laugh.

The weather turned that same afternoon. Not dramatically, not with thunder or anything cinematic, but with a gradual greying of the sky and a wind that arrived from somewhere north and carried with it the distinct message that summer in Norway is a privilege, not a right. We had planned a longer loop that would have taken us round a headland and back through what the map suggested was a "cultural landscape," a term I still do not fully understand. Instead we found ourselves hurrying back along the coastal path, me in my waterproof trousers that suddenly seemed less ridiculous, my partner in her sun dress with my jacket tied around her waist.

The rain started properly about twenty minutes from the cabin, the sort of steady, committed rain that makes you question your life choices. We arrived damp and slightly breathless, and I spent some time trying to light a wood burner with wood that had apparently been selected for its moisture content. My partner changed into dry clothes and made tea with the efficiency of someone who has accepted that holiday mishaps are simply part of the package.

What struck me, sitting there as the fire finally caught and the cabin filled with the smell of smoke and wet wool, was how little the change in weather had actually diminished the day. The walk had been beautiful in sunshine and somehow more vivid in the sudden grey, the water darkening to something almost black, the islands losing their decorative quality and becoming serious, weathered things. I had planned a certain kind of trip, the kind that would have produced photographs of smiling people in good light, and instead I got something slightly more complicated and, I suspect, more honest.

The following days continued in this pattern. Warm mornings that invited ambitious plans, afternoons that sometimes arrived with wind or rain or simply a cooling that made the water less inviting for the swimming I had promised myself. We walked when we could, adapted when we had to, and I gradually stopped checking the forecast with the anxious frequency of someone trying to control the uncontrollable.

On our last morning the sun returned, and we walked a short stretch of the coastal path we had already covered, saying goodbye to views we had begun to feel proprietary about. The water was calm again, the islands back to their ornamental selves, and I found myself hoping for rain, just a little, something to remember the place by. My partner took my hand, possibly because she felt the same, possibly because she had seen a slippery patch ahead and did not trust my footwear. Either way, I took it.