A pet owl / Supposedly best brownies/ Richmond greens

Encounters to mention today?

Yes!

A woman who bought the embroidered owl told me about her keen fondness of these birds. Jokingly I said,  'Surely, you don't have a pet owl, do you?' only to hear that actually there is a young owl in need of personal care in her home! She is nursing the bird recuperating after some sort of an accident.

A new friend visited me at the shop in the afternoon. She is considering becoming a volunteer who would like to use her sewing skills to perk up donated clothes sold at Octavia shops.

 At the bus stop a fit andcrisp elderly Canadian lady was carefully putting a packet of bakery products into her backpack. She told me that the best brownies are 'achieved' from ordinary chocolate chip cookies from Sainsbury's bakery! You must be pedantically careful putting them into the toaster for only a minute. Overdo it and the chocolate will melt. Best avoided! She has tried many various brownies but this is a hit!
Prompted by her toaster  story, I also had a tip for her. Once in a blue moon I treat myself to little round pancakes from a supermarket. They get toasted with all the necessary security requirements met, and you are strongly advised the same. How surprised I was when she turned out no stranger to my revelation. She has them with maple syrup, what else, I heard. I recommended trying them with some Philadelphia cheese and blackcurrant preserve. Maple syrup? Was she Canadian? No, but not far. From Wisconsin, The Diary State. Her accent gave her away, she did sound American so I didn't need to ask. However, she wanted to know if I was Swiss. (No, but I have an amazing Swiss friend. His name is Beni and the last time I hear from him, he was biking across Asia visiting places and meeting people. Actually, Beni let me publish his letter and pictures, I don't think I've done it though... Too much happening...) Then I surprised the Wisconsin lady again, by telling her I know her state and spent one of the greatest weekends of my life in Green Bay! We could have talked more, but my bus finally turned up and we could only wave each other goodbye.
It was a pleasant encounter.

Before I hopped on the second bus home, I found half a bench on Richmond Green to have my sandwich in peace.

British Prime Minister, Lord Wilson looked at the green from his house here in Richmond:

From Richmond Green I walked to the adjacent Little Green only to encounter a big gathering of the so called 'flying rats' on one of the trees:

Richmond Theatre is lurking from behind the line of trees:

More of Little Green:

I'll tell you a little secret: I can't remember having looked down at the Richmond rail-tracks before....  Well, now you can see them as well! :-)

Old School in Richmond features in quite a few of my pictures of this Wet Monday.

I would have walked on, but at this stage the rain threatened me and I returned to the nearest bus stop. The other Richmond Theatre was photographed from the top deck of the bus home!