I'd booked a week at Buenavista in Tenerife with one clear mission: walk every coastal path I could find and come back with legs like a mountain goat and a tan to make my colleagues weep. The reality, as ever, had other ideas.

The journey started badly and got worse. I flew into Tenerife South full of optimism, collected my hire car, and promptly spent forty-five minutes driving in circles around a roundabout near Los Cristianos because my phone decided the Atlantic Ocean was apparently a shortcut. By the time I reached the northwest coast, I'd sweated through my shirt, developed a twitch in my left eye, and discovered that Spanish motorways and my sense of direction are fundamentally incompatible.

The final indignity came as I pulled up at Buenavista. I grabbed my rucksack, my walking boots, and what I believed to be my carefully prepared folder of printed maps and trail notes. What I actually grabbed was a wodge of expired Tesco Clubcard vouchers and a takeaway menu from a curry house in Croydon. I'd left the maps on my kitchen table, next to the kettle, where they'd no doubt still be when I returned. I stood in the warm afternoon air, clutching my useless paper, and laughed properly for the first time that day.

The property itself settled me immediately. Buenavista sits in that pocket of Tenerife where the island forgets about package holidays and gets properly interesting. The terrace looked straight out toward the Atlantic, and I could see the path I'd planned to tackle first thing in the morning winding along the cliffs toward Punta de Teno. I unpacked my boots, made a cup of tea that tasted of triumph, and watched the sun drop behind La Gomera on the horizon.

Morning brought the weather that would define my week. I'd checked forecasts obsessively back in London, all promising reliable sunshine and twenty-four degrees. What arrived was something else entirely. The first day started golden and perfect, so I set off toward the coastal trail with water, snacks, and the misplaced confidence of a man who'd once completed a Parkrun. Within ninety minutes, a bank of cloud rolled in from the northwest so fast I barely had time to register it before I was walking through what felt like a particularly aggressive steam room. The path turned slick, the views vanished, and I spent two hours squinting at my boots, navigating by the occasional glimpse of whitecaps below.

I retreated to Buenavista damp, slightly humbled, and deeply grateful for the washing machine. The next morning I woke to brilliant sunshine and set off again, this time toward the path running east toward San Marcos. Same story. Perfect start, then the clouds gathered like they'd been waiting specifically for me. I found shelter in a small cafe in Icod de los Vinos, drinking coffee and watching locals in t-shirts stroll past while I shivered in my technical walking layers.

By day three, I'd adapted. I started walking earlier, catching the morning clarity before the weather turned theatrical. I learned to read the sky in ways I'd never needed in Surrey. The warm-weather adventures I'd imagined shifted into something more interesting: quick, purposeful hikes in the good hours, then retreating to watch the Atlantic weather perform its afternoon dramas from the terrace with a book and another cup of tea.

The paths themselves were magnificent when visible. The coastal trails here are proper walking: volcanic rock underfoot, sudden drops to turquoise water, the odd goat regarding you with undisguised contempt. One morning I made it to the lighthouse at Punta de Teno before the clouds caught me, and stood there feeling genuinely accomplished, boots dusty, legs aching, everything I'd wanted from this trip finally present.

What I hadn't expected was how much I'd enjoy the rhythm of compromise. The weather forced me to slow down, to stop treating the holiday like a military operation with a spreadsheet of trails to conquer. I walked when I could, explored the villages when I couldn't, and gradually stopped checking my weather app every twelve minutes.

On my final morning, the clouds never came. I walked for four hours along a stretch of coast I'd failed to complete twice before, the sun steady and warm, the sea properly blue. It was perfect, and I found myself almost missing the drama of the earlier days. Almost.

I drove back to the airport with my boots still dusty and my maps still on my kitchen table. The takeaway menu went in the bin at Tenerife South. Some preparation, I decided, is overrated.