Pack a Wet-Weather Kit Before You Leave Home

The best rainy days in a holiday cottage are the ones you have half-planned for. A little forethought in the boot of the car turns a washed-out Tuesday into one of the nicest days of the week, rather than four hours of everyone staring at each other wondering what to do next.

Build yourself a small wet-weather box and keep it packed between trips:

• A jigsaw of 500 to 1,000 pieces – big enough to feel like a project, small enough to finish. Take a folding board or a large tray so you can move it off the dining table at mealtimes.
• Two decks of cards – cribbage, rummy, whist and pelmanism all work for mixed ages and take up no room at all.
• A word game, dominoes or draughts – the sort of thing that suits a slow afternoon better than anything with a screen.
• Films and series downloaded in advance – rural broadband is often slower than you expect, and signal in deep valleys can be patchy. Download at home, and check whether the cottage has a DVD player before you rely on one.
• A book each, plus a spare – a rainy cottage is one of the last genuine reading environments left.

Stock the Kitchen on Day One, Not Day Three

If there is rain forecast, do the food shop on arrival rather than waiting for a gap in the weather. A well-stocked kitchen is the foundation of a good indoor day, and it means nobody has to drive to a supermarket in horizontal rain at five o'clock.

For baking, small tubs of the basics travel well and save buying full bags: plain flour, caster sugar, baking powder, cocoa, porridge oats, vanilla extract, chocolate chips and golden syrup. Cheese scones, flapjacks, shortbread and a plain sponge all come together with what you already have.

Cottage kitchens are famously hit and miss on equipment. Take a small set of digital scales, a sheet of baking parchment, and a favourite wooden spoon. Check the inventory before you commit to a recipe: a loaf tin, a mixing bowl and a baking tray are the usual gaps. Ovens vary wildly too, and range cookers run hotter than you think, so start ten degrees lower and check early.

Make the Cottage Cosy Before the Weather Turns

Do this in the morning, while it is still dry. Bring in a proper load of logs and kindling so nobody has to go out to the store in wet socks later. Put a drying rack somewhere near the heat, keep a basket by the door for dripping waterproofs, and stuff balls of newspaper into damp walking boots to draw the water out overnight.

Switch off the overhead lights and use lamps, candles and the fire instead – it changes the whole feeling of a room. If the cottage has a woodburner, learn the damper settings on the first evening, not the third. Blankets in a basket by the sofa cost nothing and get used far more than you would guess.

Slow Mornings: Reading, Napping and Doing Very Little

Give yourself permission to do almost nothing. Have a long breakfast, make a second pot of coffee, and let the morning drift. This is genuinely the point of a countryside cottage holiday, and it is the thing people remember afterwards – not the day they ticked off three viewpoints in drizzle.

A rainy day is also an excellent excuse for an afternoon nap, particularly if you have been walking all week. Draw the curtains, put the kettle on, and let the weather do what it likes outside.

Cook Something That Takes All Afternoon

Choose a dish that rewards patience rather than speed, and cook it with whoever is pottering about nearby. A slow beef and ale stew, a ragù left to blip gently for three hours, a root vegetable gratin, or a chicken traybake with lemon and thyme all fill the cottage with the right sort of smell.

Put something in the oven alongside it: a soda bread, a blackberry and apple crumble if it is late summer, or a baked rice pudding for the following day. If you are somewhere near the coast, a fish pie made with smoked haddock is about as comforting as cooking gets. Eat late, open a bottle of something, and let the washing up wait until morning.

Keep Children and Teenagers Happy Without Screens

Children cope with rain far better when there is something to build. Blanket dens, board games with silly forfeits, an indoor treasure hunt with clues hidden around the cottage, or baking where they do the mixing and the licking out all work reliably well.

Teenagers usually need a different offer: headphones, a downloaded series, a podcast, and a clear signal that nobody expects them to be cheerful about the weather. A long board game or a film night with proper snacks brings everyone back into the same room soon enough, and that is usually what makes a wet day under a low slate roof worth remembering.