Exotic fauna of the North
"Do you want to see some camels?" After a suitable confused pause when OneMonkey asked me that question after work recently, I agreed. Depending on where you live, camels may not be that exciting but round here they're not that common. I did wonder if perhaps the daily isolation of unemployment had got to him, but apparently he'd walked past a circus setting up in a nearby field. He led me along the road from the bus stop and through the drizzle I caught a glimpse of two large, rounded camel rumps under an awning. Not quite as exciting as two camels grazing, close enough to touch (which I'd missed by not being there earlier), but still an unusual enough occurence to make me stand and stare for a while. While I was standing and staring I realised I'd completely overlooked two placidly grazing zebras further down the field, so I stood and stared some more. This was rush hour, on a main road crammed with cars, right by a crossroads where temporary queues were building up, but I'm willing to bet that most (if not all) of those drivers missed the fact that instead of the usual horses in that field there were some funny looking black and white ones.
A few years ago my train was cancelled due to heavy snow. The sunrise was glorious and I started taking photos, which drew the attention of most of the grumbling commuters; hearing the conversations turn from the inadequacies of the rail company to how photogenic the winter morning was made me feel like I'd achieved something. A lot of the time, writing has the same sort of purpose. If you haven't seen any camels in a field this week, at least you know what you've been missing.