Hi Joanne,

I feel your pain. Because of the pandemic, from the end of March our session group had to stop meeting but from the first week of May we held a number of gatherings in a park rotunda in winter here in Australia, so the weather on each occasion was usually wet or windy, but sunny on some days too.

There were a few issues. The flute player and the tin whistle player said it was difficult to avoid the wind playing havoc with their instruments. The rotunda is a fairly long walk from the street and we each had to carry a folding chair, an instrument and other paraphernalia to set up. I envied the flute, tin whistle, fiddle and mandolin players because even though the harp I brought is smallish, it is still heavy and unwieldy.

Tuning my lever harp is usually ok for a session held indoors because I tune it before the session and it stays in tune. For the outdoor sessions I would tune it indoors before I left home and then when I set up in the outdoors the cool wind or the sun would change the tuning, but I told the rest of the group they would just have to put up with it for a couple of hours.

I have a Snark tuner which is normally easy to read but trying to read it in sunny conditions is difficult. The good thing is that the head of the tuner can be turned to a different angle to aim for better readability. Maybe you could make it a little sombrero to shade it from the sun? :-)

We now have an alternative solution. We found a small local lawn bowls club where we could use an area indoors. We can sit at the tables, socially distanced, and buy a drink from the bar, use their facilities, and not have to think about the weather. The only issue is that sometimes it is difficult to hear each other when we are having a conversation because of the social distancing. Also, with the current COVID restrictions here in NSW we have to limit our indoor gathering to 10 people, so I have to play email ping-pong with the group a few days before each session to work out who is planning to be there and who was too late letting me know and has to miss out.

We like the venue so much that even when we are able to have session gatherings at home again, we might still go to the club instead.