I have never been so grateful for a thermos of tea in my entire life. There we were, my partner and I, crawling along a farm track somewhere between Ystad and the middle of nowhere, convinced our sat nav had developed a personal vendetta against us. The autumn rain was coming down sideways, the kind of persistent Swedish drizzle that does not so much fall as settle in for a long chat, and our little hire car had just bottomed out in a puddle the size of a small pond. I had insisted on bringing wellies. My partner had insisted they would not be necessary. Reader, I have never enjoyed being right quite so much.

We were heading for a place called Balkakra, a cluster of holiday cottages not far from Ystad in Skane, Sweden's southernmost county. I had booked it months ago during a January enthusiasm spike, seduced by photographs of golden fields and promises of proper Swedish countryside. What I had failed to properly account for was the particular character of Skane in late October. The guidebooks all rattle on about summer here, the rapeseed fields blazing yellow, the beaches busy with Copenhagen day-trippers. Nobody writes poems about the damp shoulder season, and perhaps they should, because it has a mood all of its own.

The cottage emerged from the grey like a friendly surprise. Red wooden walls, white trim, the classic Skane look that manages to be both instantly recognisable and genuinely charming even when you are soggy and slightly fed up. Our neighbour, an elderly man in waxed trousers who appeared to have been waiting for entertainment, watched our arrival with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had seen this exact scene many times before. He offered to help with our bags in Swedish, then in slightly louder Swedish, then in English with a grin that suggested he had been saving that option for maximum effect.

Inside, the cottage smelled of wood and something else I could not place, a clean, slightly sweet scent that I later learned was the hayloft above, still holding summer in its fibres despite the season having turned. The heating, mercifully, worked with the quiet efficiency that Scandinavians seem to consider a birthright. Within an hour we had shed our wet layers, lit what felt like an excessive number of candles, and stood at the kitchen window watching the light fail at half past four with the resigned acceptance of people who had forgotten just how early darkness comes this far north in autumn.

That first evening, we walked briefly down to the little stream that runs past the property, the ground soft and giving underfoot, the last leaves coming down in that unhurried way they have when there is no wind to rush them. Everything was muted, the colours all running together into browns and greys and the occasional stubborn yellow of a birch tree holding out against the inevitable. It was not beautiful in the obvious, photographable sense. It was something quieter, more particular to the time of year, the sense of a landscape settling in, pulling its resources close, preparing for the long months ahead.

I found myself unexpectedly moved by it, standing there in borrowed wellies with cold ears, realising how much of my travelling life had been spent chasing peak conditions, the best weather, the optimal season. There was something gently humbling about experiencing a place in its less celebrated moment, without the competition of summer crowds or the pressure to make the most of perfect days. The rain, the early dark, the damp smell of decaying leaves, these were not inconveniences to be endured but the actual character of the place at this time of year, and there was a stubborn pleasure in meeting it on its own terms.

We walked back to the cottage as the last light went, the windows glowing warm against the grey, and I already knew that this particular damp autumn evening would stay with me longer than many sunnier holidays had managed.