I have never been brilliant at reading maps, and my first visit to a Wilcze in Wielkopolska proved this beyond all doubt. The sat-nav gave up somewhere near Poznan, leaving me squinting at a crumpled printout while my passenger, my long-suffering friend Clare, suggested for the fourth time that perhaps I should have booked a taxi. We were hunting for a rural property near the village of Wilcze, not far from the Warta River, and I had confidently assured her it would be "impossible to miss." Reader, we missed it. Twice. The first time we ended up in someone's farmyard, where a very polite gentleman with two enormous dogs explained, in rapid Polish that I absolutely did not follow, that we needed to turn around and try again. The second time we found ourselves at a cemetery, which felt like a sign from above that my navigating career should end there.

When we finally spotted the correct turning, down a narrow lane edged with wildflowers and overhanging willows, I felt the kind of relief usually reserved for finding your passport the morning of a flight. The property sat at the end, a traditional Wielkopolska rural house with a generous garden and that particular stillness you only get in the Polish countryside. I had planned our arrival for late afternoon, hoping for a gentle stroll before supper. The weather, however, had other ideas. The forecast had promised warm sunshine, perfect for walking the riverbank paths I had researched. Instead, the sky had turned the colour of old pewter, and the air felt thick and heavy, the kind of humidity that makes your clothes stick before you have even started moving.

We dumped our bags and stood on the veranda, watching distant lightning flicker over the flat fields. "Brilliant," Clare said, in the tone of someone who had heard me say "it'll be lovely and warm" approximately seventy times during the drive. I had packed entirely for Mediterranean conditions. Light walking trousers, breathable shirts, a sun hat. I had not packed for an approaching thunderstorm. This is, I reflected, the difference between reading about a place and actually visiting it. Wielkopolska in late spring can be gloriously warm, but it can also turn on you with theatrical suddenness, the continental climate shifting from pleasant to dramatic before you have located your waterproofs.

The rain arrived properly just as we were considering a dash to the village shop. Not polite English drizzle, but proper Polish downpour, the sort that bounces six inches off the ground and turns lanes into streams. We retreated inside and watched it hammer against the windows, the garden becoming a watercolour of greens and greys. I felt a familiar holiday frustration, that sense of plans dissolving, of the imagined walk replaced by the reality of sitting indoors.

But here is the thing about enforced stillness. After the initial grumbling, after Clare had finished pretending to sulk and I had made tea in the slightly eccentric kitchen, I found myself settling into the rhythm of the place. The rain on the roof, the occasional distant rumble, the way the garden seemed to glow with saturated colour. We opened the windows to catch the cool air after the storm passed, and the smell hit us: wet earth, cut grass, that particular freshness that only comes after heavy rain in warm weather.

By early evening the sky had cleared to a washed-out blue, and we ventured out at last. The lane was steaming slightly, the puddles reflecting a sky now scattered with high clouds. We walked only as far as the nearest field path, perhaps a mile, but it felt earned, this small expedition. The ground was soft and our shoes got muddy almost immediately, but the air had turned delicious, warm and clean and full of birdsong. A heron lifted from the riverbank as we approached, slow and unbothered, and we stood watching it until it vanished around the bend.

That first evening taught me something I keep forgetting to remember. I had arrived with a fixed idea of what the holiday should look like: long dry walks, suntanned arms, efficient exploration of the local landscape. Instead I got rain, confusion, and a very short muddy stroll. Yet the memory that stays with me, more than any planned excursion, is standing in that damp lane with Clare, both of us laughing at our ruined shoes, watching the light change over the Warta valley as the day cooled into evening. The weather had changed my plans entirely. It had not, as it turned out, ruined anything at all.