On Saturday 6^th January 2007, my grand­dad Dominic McDonnell passed away, after a merci­fully brief battle with cancer.

On hearing the news, I jumped on a train home so I could be with the family. My grand­mother and most of his children (includ­ing my mum) had congreg­ated at his house in Woking: we spent the evening celeb­rat­ing his life, remin­is­cing and sharing our favour­ite memor­ies of him. It was very much the right thing to do.

A week and a half later, I headed back down south for the funeral. I’m not sure why, but I felt almost emotion­ally detached during the service. The church was absolutely packed with friends and family, many of whom I hadn’t seen for years. It wasn’t until we left the church and I had my arms around my younger sisters that I broke down, as we watched the hearse carry Granddad away. The crema­tion service the follow­ing day was lovely, with his children, Justin, Claire and Stephen all reading pieces about him.

It almost feels wrong to say it, but the parties we had after each service were great. It was good to catch up with all of the people I only ever see at the really big family events.

You may still be wonder­ing why I’ve titled this piece “Boiled Eggs”. It’s because that’s my favour­ite memory. I don’t think I voiced it at the time.

When we were young, Alice & I would occasion­ally be dropped off at the grand­par­ents for a weekend. Our mum & dad were usually off doing something silly like The National Rally on their classic bikes. Anyway, break­fast was always a highlight: Dominic had perfec­ted the art of the soft-boiled egg. It came from the chick­ens they kept in the garden. It went in for four minutes. It never cracked prema­turely. The soldiers were toasted to perfec­tion. There’s probably an element of rose-tinted glasses, but that’s the way I remem­ber it. Good times.

Obviously he was a lot more to me than just the man who taught me how to boil the perfect egg. It was my mother that pointed it out to me: I was probably a lot closer to him than I might have been if my father hadn’t died in my teenage years. Granddad was always a man I looked up to. He was so bright, talen­ted and worldly wise, without ever being condescending.

I was looking through my collec­tion and could only find one photo of him. I’ll have to get some more from the family. My little sister’s got a nice photo of the whole family from the day of the funeral.

Just going through my old text messages and came across this one from Alice, my sister. I’ve been reluct­ant to delete it for some reason.

SMS From: Alice Mob
07.07.2005    11:04
Oliver they are
blowing up london
the whole of zone
one is shut. im ok
though. im in
selfridges wierdly
people are still
shopping! Alice x

It was quite a relief to get that message, I can tell you. Quite insight­ful too. Despite all the chaos going on outside, these people were trapped in huge depart­ment store. What else were they going to do?

Hello Abigail. Yes, you, in the pink.

Your big brother (that’ll be me) has been spectac­u­larly useless, and failed to get you anything nice for your birth­day (that’s today, as I’m sure you’re aware).

This could be something to do with not having a clue what you’d like. He thought about another game for the ‘cube but he would appear to have already bought you all the good ones. The he thought about a CD, but what does an Abbie listen to, if anything? The chocol­ate, sweets and book/music/beer token options all seem like a bit of a cop-out.

It could also be down to sheer disor­gan­isa­tion on his part.

No doubt he’ll give you a call later and see if you know what you’d like [1]), have a think, buy something and put it in the post. Maybe he’ll come and visit you at some point in the near future? He can’t plan his life beyond tomor­row so who knows when that might be…

Anyway, he hopes you’re having a good one and that you’ll forgive his useless­ness — you really ought to be used to it by now!

[1] The reader might be inter­ested to know that this question usually results in an “erm…” or something very very expens­ive indeed.

A couple of birth­days to celebrate:

First up, Happy 30^th to Leon McD! It was a week or so ago but I quite cleverly forgot all about it. Quite worry­ingly he seems to have been playing Half Life 2 since early in December last year. I hope he’s not trapped in there somewhere…

Secondly, Happy 22^nd (?) Birthday to Tommy Tubbs Westbrook! He’s not to be confused with the extraordin­ary gent of the same name, though some would say he’d fit right into Royston Vasey.

That will be all for now.

Who’d have thought they’d have Zebras, Monkeys, Lions and Leopards just up the road from here eh? Pictures in The Gallery.

Oh, it was the Cotswold Wildlife Park. I spent a couple of years working a few miles down the road, drove within spitting distance of it on the way home, and never once registered its exist­ence. It took my mother (who lives about 130 miles from me) to a) point out that it exists and b) drag me there. Glad I went though — its not every day that you get to see White Rhino and eat/drink slush puppies.

I should point out that Great Grey Owls are very sinis­ter looking creatures in real life (as opposed to the quite friendly looking speci­men on that page). They seem to belong in some sort of gothic horror film. Perhaps that’s not too surpris­ing, consid­er­ing their native habitat is the dark and remote forests of Alaska and Lapland.

Here’s a selec­tion of pictures I took over the Christmas period. You’ll find friends, relat­ives and turtles amongst other things. Hope you enjoy them. View the pictures…

Phone rings. Its Alice.

Hi, we’re in Sainsbury’s, in the beer section. What would you like us to get in for you for Christmas?

Winner!

I joined the Cheltenham Film Society a couple of weeks back. I went along with some friends of mine and was surprised to meet a few other people I knew there, includ­ing my aunt and uncle Helen and Stephen. Its a small world isn’t it?

Anyway, tonight’s film was House of Sand and Fog, starring Jennifer Connelly (who always surprises me by actually being a good actress) and Ben Kingsley.

It was very clever, in that through­out the film, you never quite decide where your sympath­ies lie. A large part of me wanted Behrani [Kingsley] and his family to win out, yet I didn’t want Kathy [Connelly] to lose out at all (even if she did bring her downfall upon herself somewhat). The only person that you really end up dislik­ing is Lester [Ron Eldard], who starts out as the friendly police­man but ends up being a bit of a psycho nut job.

Its a fantastic film, but its really not the most light-hearted in the world. In fact it verges on being downright depress­ing. I got to the end and thought “What the hell is she going to do with her life now?”

Myself and Ben [not Kingsley] were discuss­ing it on the way home — is it even possible to make a really good happy film? Its just that the really good films always seem to be gritty, intense psycho­lo­gical dramas (or that seems to be the way at this film society). Is it even possible to portray shiny happy intense gritty realism?