I have never been so grateful for a thermos of tea in my entire life. We had been driving from Kalmar across the Oland Bridge, that long thin ribbon of road that stretches over the Kalmar Strait, and I had insisted on stopping for what I called a "scenic wee" at one of the laybys. What I had not accounted for was the fact that it was late October, the wind was coming in sideways off the Baltic, and I had chosen to wear canvas shoes. By the time I hobbled back to the car, my socks were sodden, my dignity was in tatters, and my other half was doing that silent shaking thing he does when he is trying not to laugh. "Scenic," he said. "Very scenic."

The thing about Oland in autumn is that it does not do anything by halves. The island is flat as a pancake, scraped clean by glaciers thousands of years ago, so there is absolutely nowhere for the weather to hide. You get it full in the face, whatever it is. That day it was bright sunshine one minute and horizontal rain the next, the clouds racing across that enormous sky like they were late for something important. I sat in the passenger seat with my bare feet on the dashboard, trying to dry my socks on the heater vents, and watched the landscape roll by. Stubble fields in shades of ochre and brown, the occasional red wooden farmhouse huddled against the wind, and everywhere that sense of space, of the island being slowly emptied out after the summer crowds have gone home.

We found our stuga in Lottorp down one of those sandy tracks that all look identical until suddenly they do not. The key was in the lockbox, exactly as promised, and I will admit that my first thought on stepping inside was: thank God for central heating. The cottage had that particular smell of Swedish holiday homes, something between pine needles and slightly damp wool, and it was absolutely boiling. My other half immediately started fiddling with the thermostat while I stood in the middle of the living room in my still-damp socks, turning slowly around like a dog trying to find the perfect spot. There was a wood-burning stove in the corner, stacked with birch logs that we would not need because the heating was already tropical. A small kitchen with orange laminate worktops that looked like it had seen several decades of fish suppers. Windows that framed the garden like paintings, and beyond it the bare branches of oak trees, their leaves already given up for the year.

I made us both tea and we stood at the kitchen window, watching a squirrel bury something in the lawn with frantic, comical energy. The light was doing that extraordinary thing it does in Sweden at that time of year, low and golden and somehow fragile, as if the sun knows it is losing its grip and is making every hour count. By four o'clock it would be properly dark. We had maybe six hours of useful daylight, and already I could feel the rhythm of the place asserting itself. No rushing to the beach, no long evenings sitting outside. This was a different kind of holiday, one that demanded you move with the season rather than against it.

That first evening we walked to the village shop, which was also the petrol station and somehow the post office too, and bought meatballs and lingonberry sauce for dinner. The woman behind the counter spoke English with that slight American twang Swedes often have, and she told us the storm was coming tomorrow, proper storm, you will see. We walked back with our carrier bags bumping against our legs, the darkness complete now, the stars already out in that vast sky with no hills to block them. Somewhere an owl was doing its thing.

I think what struck me most, lying in bed that night listening to the wind start to pick up, was how the season had already begun to shape us. We were not the same people who had packed swimming costumes and sunscreen in July. We were slower, quieter, more willing to be indoors with a book and the sound of weather against the windows. The summer version of this cottage would be all about the garden, the barbecue, the long light evenings. The autumn version was something else entirely, something more inward-looking, more generous with its comforts. I fell asleep thinking about that squirrel, wondering if it knew something we did not, and whether I would wake to find the world transformed by wind and rain.

The storm did come, of course, and my socks were still damp in the morning.