Sunday 22nd August: Hello Elsie

Tuesday 24th August 2021
 
Today I am 62 and I would like to think everybody who has wished me birthday greetings on social media. I have tried to thank you all individually, but I’m sure some of you have slipped through the net. Last year, for the first time, I didn’t think people individually. I had only been widowed a few days before, and for various polypharmaceutical reasons I was not in a good place. But this year I am remarkably chipper, not the least because Lady Selene has gone away for another month.
 
The night before last I, once again, became a great uncle. David and Jessica Braund-Phillips welcomed their daughter into the world, and I can’t wait to meet her. I am sure that she will have inherited my good looks, charm and modesty. That’s how genetics works. Ask Max.
Jonathan Downes
Cryptozoologist, naturalist, musician, singer, composer, poet, novelist and Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology since 1992. Jon was born in Portsmouth in 1959 and spent his infancy in Nigeria and his childhood in Hong Kong. His wife Corinna died of cancer in 2020, leaving him with two stepdaughters and a six year old granddaughter called Evelyn.