A midsummer postcard from Upper Wheatley

More of what Lee-Ann did last summer or maybe the one before that

This postcard has been on Lee-Ann’s mantelpiece for a while. You know what she’s like. There are probably more under the settee that she’ll find eventually.

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My sister Gina’s gone to France to spend Midsummer sunrise at some standing stones, ‘tuning into the universe’ and ‘reconnecting with nature’. Someone on Instagram must’ve put the idea in her head because she’s not normally what you’d call ‘spiritual’, and nature, as far as Gina’s concerned, is the stingy bitey stuff to be avoided on picnics, or the annoying bits that spoil her perfect lawn. She wouldn’t ordinarily want to connect to it in any way except via a flyswat. She does see sunrise a lot more often than I do, because she’s up at the crack of dawn wrapped in lycra more often than not, but that’s about efficient use of the day, not appreciating pretty colours in the sky. Looking up at the horizon probably distracts her from counting her steps or breathing in patterns, or whatever it is she’s normally up to.

Anyway, she’s taken her husband with her but not their daughter Jasmine, and because Jasmine expressed a preference for spending time with her Aunty Lee-Ann, and Gina doesn’t trust me to look after myself most of the time, let alone my infant niece, Jasmine and I are both staying with Gina’s lovely in-laws. They have the sort of lifestyle that George Clooney might advertise, if George Clooney wore more tweed, and frankly I’d be intimidated by most of the gadgets in their kitchen if I ever had to use them, but Jasmine’s Grandma Sue tends to wait on me hand and foot. It’s like staying at a really posh B&B.

While she was dishing out my scrambled egg on toast she said she didn’t see why Gina had gone all the way to France when there was a stone circle about forty minutes’ walk away, which surely would have done just as well for the following morning’s sunrise. I pointed out that she wouldn’t have been able to get exactly the same photos as everyone else if she hadn’t gone to the same place, and Sue smirked. She doesn’t criticise Gina as freely and frankly as I do but you can feel the undercurrent. I mean, I know there’s a school of thought that says you ought to defend your own family against all outsiders, but clearly none of its members have had to put up with sisters like Gina all their lives. Any decent mother would surely have some qualms about Gina as a daughter in law, otherwise she’d be neglecting her son’s best interests.

‘Perhaps Jasmine and I should go to that one and show her what she’s missing’ I said, in what was obviously a flippant moment, not to be taken at all seriously, but Jasmine shouted ‘Yay!’ and Sue said ‘what a lovely idea’ and the next thing I knew, she was spreading a map on the kitchen table and pointing out the best route with the rubber end of a pencil. By the time I was wiping up the last smear of brown sauce with a toast crust she’d assembled a torch, fleece, gloves — just in case — and a small rucksack. I tried to protest that I’d left my walking boots at home but she said the paths were good and I ought to be fine in my trainers.

‘What about Jasmine?’ I said, grasping at the nearest straw, ‘she’s only got little legs; forty minutes’ walk is a long way’. There was a moment where Sue looked a bit concerned and I could see a glimmer of hope, then Jasmine, the little monster, said she’d go to bed extra early that night and she was sure she’d be fine, and anyway we’d be able to rest a while before we came home and as a last resort Aunty Lee-Ann could carry her. I’ll remind her of this when she’s older and wants to know why she isn’t mentioned in my will.

The alarm went off at some hour I’ve only ever seen from the other direction, i.e. before I’ve got round to going to bed, and I’m amazed I didn’t walk into more furniture than I did while I was bleary-eyed and half-dressed. Before she went to bed, Sue had made us a flask of tea and a tinfoil parcel of flapjack, and I did consider taking it back to bed to consume in comfort, and swearing Jasmine to secrecy, but you can’t always rely on her not to giggle at the wrong moment. Like when you’re trying to convince Gina’s neighbour that their broken tulips are the fault of a passing cat and nothing whatsoever to do with the football they saw you with only ten minutes earlier. There was nothing for it but to make sure Jasmine was suitably wrapped up, sling the rucksack on my back and head out. Though I was still hoping for a sudden thunderstorm that would end this mad escapade before we got more than a hundred yards from the front door.

What we got instead was drizzle. The fine, persistent sort that doesn’t feel like it’s doing much and then suddenly you’re soaked to the skin. Jasmine of course had a raincoat on — despite Gina’s misguided opinion, I’m not actually that feckless. Plus, Sue had got it out of the cupboard and left it by the front door. She’d left my cagoule out too, but I opted not to put it on when we set off due to that particular shade of yellow being incompatible with such an early hour, and because, as I think I mentioned, the rain was deceptively light, I was already quite wet when I got it out of the rucksack and the hood pressed wet hair to my forehead.

In fact I blame obscured vision due to the wet hair and the hood at least partly for us missing the path. ‘You can’t miss it’ Sue had said, but she was used to going in broad daylight and it had been familiar to her for decades; I’d like to see her find it in pre-dawn gloom when she’d never been there before.

When we’d been walking for about an hour and Jasmine’s steps were getting noticeably slower I suggested we sit on a handy rock and watch the sunrise from there. It’s the same sun, what does it matter?

Of course I’d failed to take account of the clouds, and once we’d demolished the tea and flapjack, and the sky was lighter than it had been when we sat down, Jasmine asked if that was it, and when I said yes, she nodded like that was about what she’d expected, then jumped down ready for the walk home. No flashy photos for us, but then at least I didn’t have to provide evidence of the lack of standing stones.

We hadn’t been back long when Gina rang to check I’d brought Jasmine home in one piece, and Sue put her on speakerphone. She’d already told her it was drizzling with us, so I was expecting Gina to gloat but no — apparently it had hailed just as they’d arrived at their stone circle, and not only that but there were some wild horses in the vicinity which, Gina insisted, had been ‘looking at her funny’.

‘We saw a rabbit,’ said Jasmine, not mentioning that we hadn’t seen a stone circle. The hint of envy in the way Gina said ‘that’s nice, darling’, made me think I should probably not cut my angel of a niece out of my will after all.

love, Lee-Ann xx

What on earth was that?

If that’s your response you may be unfamiliar with my audio sitcom Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays which I made 11 episodes of between December 2022 and August 2024. You can listen at Apple podcasts, Spotify, or in your browser without having to sign in to anything at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jysaville.

Fortyish Lee-Ann has been moved on to a four-day week at work and wants to spend her Fridays with her portly black and white cat Lord Salisbury, or researching the history of Upper Wheatley, the Yorkshire Dales village she moved to a few years ago to be near her baby niece. Unfortunately her interfering older sister Gina doesn’t think those are worthy pursuits and tries to divert her. Lee-Ann's Scottish neighbour Douglas isn't on anyone's side but his own. It's structured like a sitcom, but I wrote and performed it as a monologue from Lee-Ann's point of view.

Lee-Ann has been scouring the charity shops and picked up a load of unused old postcards, the kind that fold out so she can ramble on in her usual fashion when she writes them. None of them depict the Yorkshire Dales.