Farnham Martin Park

Went to the outdoor concert tonight for the first time. The music was great, the setting was great, the partial view of the sunset over the ocean was great. All great except one thing — the lack of restrooms. Maybe I wouldn’t have minded quite so much that there was only ONE stall (shared both men and women) for about FIVE HUNDRED people had it not been for the fact that before the concert someone made an announcement about all the available bathrooms. The other so-​called available bathrooms were all locked up tight. Anyway, it’s all wonderful, just make sure you go before you leave home and limit your beverage intake when there. Or be prepared to miss about 30 minutes of the concert to wait in line.

The summer free concert season is in progress.
Concerts in the park are held during July (after the 4^th) & August, on Wednesdays at 7pm, during which time the little park is packed to capacity.
After 3pm on concert days, people stake out their spaces on the lawn with blankets.
Then they return later, with picnic dinners.
It’s a local tradition for many people to bring quite elaborate picnic dinners, I observed. And it seemed as though everyone knew everyone else as they happily chatted with their neighbors & friends while waiting for the music to begin.
If you drive to the concerts, you must arrive early to snag a parking space close to the site because there’s limited parking (no meters) in the quiet residential neighborhood surrounding the library and adjacent park space.
And be prepared to carry your chairs, etc. up and down the hills, because the Malaga Cove neighborhood, like most of PVE, is all about hills.
Although the library closes at 5pm, restrooms were open.
And there will be a hat passed around to collect donations to help cover concert costs.
I arrived more than an hour early last night and used the time to walk around the area looking at the free-​roaming peacocks that are plentiful in upper Malaga.
I even spotted a mama peacock with babies the size of cornish game hens. It was the first time I’ve seen baby peacocks smaller than chickens, but by the time I got my camera ready the mother flew up into a tree & the babies ran into thick foliage. Dang.
I was so focused on camera-​hunting peacocks that, by the time 7pm rolled around, I was lucky to find a spot to stand at the back of the park. Having brought no friends, no blanket, no chair, and no food, I felt a bit like a party-​crasher.
That being said, it always feels like a privilege to be in such a beautiful place, with or without a concert.