The SatNav had been insisting for a good twenty minutes that we were nearly there, which in SatNav language apparently means "prepare for a spiritual journey through what feels like the back end of nowhere." My partner Dave and I had left Warsaw that morning, full of optimism and Polish motorway snacks, and by mid-afternoon we were winding through pine forests in Masuria with the windows down and the smell of warm resin drifting in.

Then came the mishap. Dave, who fancies himself something of a navigator, spotted a sign for Kaplityny and got rather overexcited. "Turn here!" he announced, pointing at what looked like a tractor path. I obliged, because marriage is partly about shared poor decisions. Two hundred metres later we were axle-deep in sandy soil next to a field of very unimpressed cows. The car made a noise like a disappointed sigh. Dave made a noise like a man who suddenly remembered he had left his phone charger in Warsaw.

Forty minutes, some creative swearing, and the kindness of a passing farmer later, we found the actual entrance to our holiday home. The proper driveway, it turns out, was paved and everything. Very fancy.

The house sat among birch trees with a proper Polish country garden, all rambling and slightly wild in that charming way that suggests nature is winning but not by much. A wooden terrace wrapped around the front, and beyond it I could glimpse silver through the trees. The lake. I stood there with my rucksack still on, feeling the particular ache of a long drive in my shoulders, and something in the warm air and the buzz of insects made me think that maybe the sandy detour had been worth it. Maybe. Ask me again when I've had a proper sit down.

We dumped our bags and did what any sensible person does after arriving somewhere new: went for a wander to see what we'd actually booked. The path down to the water was soft with pine needles, and the lake opened up suddenly, wide and calm, with reeds rustling at the edges. A family of swans cruised past looking thoroughly entitled, as swans do. I had grand plans for the week. Proper walking plans. The kind where you stride along the shore with purpose and return pleasantly tired and possibly smug about your step count.

The next morning I set off with my boots and a water bottle, following what I thought was a coastal path. Masuria's lakes don't really do dramatic cliffs, but the shoreline undulates through forest and meadow, and there's something deeply satisfying about walking where you can always hear water nearby. I made it perhaps two miles before the sky, which had been doing a convincing impression of settled summer weather, suddenly produced clouds that looked like they'd been borrowing trouble from somewhere.

The rain started politely enough, a few fat drops on the path. Then it committed. Proper Polish summer rain, warm but relentless, the sort that soaks through everything you own in roughly ninety seconds. I sheltered under an oak tree that offered approximately the protection of a colander, watching my walking plans dissolve along with any dignity I might have possessed. A fisherman in a small boat glided past, raised his hat to me with what I can only describe as sympathetic amusement, and carried on.

I squelched back to the house to find Dave on the terrace with a beer, dry as a bone, wearing an expression of tremendous innocence. He had checked the forecast, apparently. He had chosen not to mention it. We had words, though I was too busy dripping on the wooden floorboards to make them particularly cutting.

The rain passed, as Polish summer rain tends to do, and the afternoon turned golden and steamy. We walked then, the two of us, along a different stretch of shore where the pines grew right to the water's edge and the path was soft with needles rather than mud. The lake had that particular stillness after rain, like it was resting. Dave stopped to photograph a dragonfly, which is the sort of thing he does when he is avoiding admitting he was right about the weather.

I thought about my soggy morning as we walked, and about how holidays never quite follow the script you write in your head. I had wanted grand coastal hikes, sweeping views, perhaps a moment of solitary communion with nature. Instead I got lost in a sandy field, rained on like a figure in a cartoon, and reduced to sheltering under inadequate foliage. And yet there we were, walking slowly in warm evening light, with the smell of wet earth and pine, and the particular quiet of a place where the main sound is water lapping against stones.

The house waited for us with its rambling garden and its terrace where we would later sit with wine and watch the bats come out. I had not planned for any of it, not really. The best bits rarely are planned, I've found. Though next time, I am checking the forecast myself. And ignoring Dave's navigational enthusiasms entirely.