It may have officially ended some time ago, but it felt like the end of summer this weekend.
It's too chilly now to sit outside in the evening and it was dark yesterday before the news had finished.
As a final hurrah for the season, I spent Sunday afternoon relaxing at Te
Awanga Beats, at the lovely Te Awanga Estate.
Lounging on the lawn with a glass of pinot gris was just the perfect way to say sayonara to the long, sun-soaked days of summer.
It was a weekend with something for everyone, as far as entertainment goes - a big game in Napier on Saturday night and, across in Hastings, literary types sipped wine and talked words at the Hastings Festival of Writers.
The big drawcard this year was The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain author Annie Proulx, who was smart, insightful and had a sly, surprising humour.
What I like about the Hastings festival is that while some of us paid $35 for the pleasure of hearing her speak and read with top New Zealand writers Owen Marshall, Cilla McQueen, Jenny Pattrick and Jenny Bornholdt on Saturday night - and had a great time - you could have heard Proulx speak free of charge at a Saturday afternoon session as well.
Having Proulx at the festival was a huge coup for Hastings - a fan at my table said: "I can't believe I'm in the same room as her" - although it was sort of mistakenly revealed that her trip to New Zealand may have also been for research purposes.
So it would be an even greater coup if the local landscape appeared in one of Proulx's future novels - but it seems unlikely.
There was much talk on Saturday night about the harsh, unwelcoming landscapes she is attracted too and which form the setting for most of her stories.
Looking across the vines at Te Awanga yesterday, it was hard to imagine a more welcoming, hospitable place.
