I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I missed the turning for Satofta and ended up in a farmyard somewhere near Hoor, staring at a very unimpressed goat. Three-point turn, mild swearing, and twenty minutes later I finally found the little red cottage hiding among the birch trees, looking impossibly Swedish and impossibly tidy compared to my dishevelled arrival.

The owners had left the key in a wooden box with a combination that was supposedly simple. It was not simple. I stood there in twenty-two degree sunshine, sweating through my t-shirt, trying variations of the code they'd emailed while a blackbird watched from the fence with what I can only describe as avian judgment. When the lock finally clicked, I may have said something celebratory that startled a nearby cat.

Stepping inside was like walking into one of those lifestyle magazines my sister leaves at Mum's house. Whitewashed walls, proper wooden floors that creaked in friendly places, and a kitchen that smelled faintly of pine and someone else's excellent coffee. I dumped my bags with the grace of a collapsing deckchair and went straight to the garden, where a hammock swayed between two trees like a promise.

My plan, hatched during a rainy Tuesday in Milton Keynes, had been ambitious. Coastal walks every day. The Skane coastline with its flat rocks and pale sand, those long horizons that make you feel pleasantly insignificant. I'd packed three pairs of walking socks and a serious expression. The weather app had shown nothing but sun, little orange circles stretching into infinity.

The first morning confirmed my genius. I drove the short distance to the coast near Barseback, found a parking spot by a field of barley that shimmered like something from a film, and set off along the coastal path with a packed lunch and misplaced confidence. The rocks were warm underfoot, the water that particular Baltic blue that looks cold even when it isn't, and I walked for hours without seeing more than a handful of people. A seal watched me from a distance, or possibly it was a buoy. I prefer to think seal.

By afternoon I had developed what I can only describe as a farmer's tan and a powerful thirst. The village shop near the harbour sold me an overpriced lemonade that tasted like liquid gold. I sat on a bench eating herring on crispbread, feeling genuinely smug about my life choices.

Then came day two, and with it a lesson in Scandinavian weather humility. I woke to grey skies that weren't threatening exactly, just deeply uncommitted. Still, I set off for another coastal stretch near Landskrona, because I am stubborn and had brought three pairs of walking socks. The path was still beautiful, the rocks still dramatic, but the wind had developed opinions. Strong ones. My serious walking hat blew into a gorse bush and I performed a retrieval that I'm sure looked deeply dignified from a distance.

The drizzle started around eleven, that particular Swedish drizzle that isn't rain exactly but somehow achieves total saturation. I sheltered under a boat shed with two local dog walkers who nodded politely and pretended not to notice my hat situation. We stood in companionable silence watching the weather make up its mind, which it declined to do.

I retreated to the cottage by early afternoon, slightly defeated, and discovered the particular joy of a warm kitchen and a book while weather happens elsewhere. The owners had left a pack of local biscuits that I demolished with the focus of a man who has earned his carbohydrates through mild meteorological adversity.

Day three brought proper warmth again, and with it a revised philosophy. I walked locally, exploring the lanes around Satofta itself, finding paths through beech woods where the light came through in patches and the air smelled of leaf mould and summer. A deer crossed the track ahead of me, utterly unconcerned, and I stood still like a child spotting something magical. These smaller walks, unplanned and unambitious, became the holiday's unexpected gift.

I did return to the coast once more, on my final morning, when the weather had settled into something golden and forgiving. The rocks were warm again, the seal or buoy still in position, and I walked just far enough to feel I'd arrived somewhere before turning back with the particular satisfaction of a loop completed.

Driving away, slightly sunburned in inconsistent patterns, I thought about how the best holidays rarely follow the script you write in advance. The missed turning, the stubborn lock, the weather that wouldn't cooperate, the local walks I would have skipped if the coast had stayed perfect. They all became the story I wanted to tell.