I should have known the holiday was going to be character-building when I put the postcode into my sat nav and it directed me to a field of very confused cows. Turns out "Rigeleje, Maglehem" and my pronunciation of it share approximately no letters in common, and after twenty minutes of polite Swedish head-scratching at a petrol station in Simrishamn, a lovely chap called Henrik drew me a map on the back of a receipt. I arrived at the cottage forty minutes later with what I can only describe as a profound sense of geographical humiliation.

The property itself sits tucked into the Skane countryside with that particular Scandinavian knack for being both rustic and alarmingly well-organised. I stepped out of the car, stretched my legs, and immediately walked into a clothesline that I am fairly certain was not there a moment before. The owners, I later learned, had just popped to the shops. I spent my first ten minutes of Swedish countryside living performing an elaborate pantomime of innocence for absolutely no one.

But the real revelation came the next morning when I set out for what I had planned as a gentle coastal walk. The weather app had promised "partly cloudy," which in British terms means pack a mac and lower your expectations. In Skane in late July, it apparently means "prepare to be aggressively sunned." I had packed three jumpers, waterproof trousers, and a hat that made me look like I was about to announce a railway delay. What I needed was sunscreen, water, and a fundamental rethink of my life choices.

I drove down to the coast near Kivik, figuring I would stroll along the shore path towards Stenshuvud National Park. The trail starts innocently enough, winding through beech woods that look like they have been art-directed for a furniture catalogue. Then you emerge onto the cliffs, and the Baltic spreads out in front of you with that particular flat blue calm that makes you feel simultaneously tiny and smug about your holiday choices.

By midday I had shed two jumpers and was carrying them like a confused tourist version of a shepherd with particularly woolly sheep. The path dips down to little coves and back up again, and I found myself deliberately slowing my pace, not because I was tired, but because I kept stopping to stand on rocks like a mediocre seagull and just look at things. There is something deeply unfashionable about admitting you enjoyed staring at water, but I am well past the age where fashion applies to me.

The weather turned properly warm by early afternoon, and I realised my grand plan of a twelve-mile circuit was perhaps optimistic for someone whose training regime consisted mainly of walking to the fridge. I cut inland through apple orchards instead, because Skane in summer smells of ripening fruit and salt and that particular warm-earth scent that makes you briefly consider abandoning your entire life to become a person who owns a small boat.

I got slightly lost among the orchards, which is embarrassing given they are essentially grids of trees with occasional helpful Swedes on bicycles. A woman called Ingrid set me right, then asked if I was walking for exercise or because my car had broken down. I told her neither, really, and she nodded as if this explained everything about the British.

Back at the cottage that evening, I sat on the little terrace with my feet up and watched the light do that prolonged Scandinavian fade that makes you lose track of time entirely. I had a sunburned nose, blisters in places I did not know could blister, and a bag full of unused waterproofs. My plans had been thoroughly defeated by sunshine and my own optimism, and I could not remember the last time I had felt so pleased about being so poorly prepared.