One click of her camera shutter, and Lou’s glass sphere turned the views of her favourite landscapes upside down. Two for the price of one, as her images retained the original scene as background. In her view that was as magical as any fortune telling qualities usually attributed to crystal balls.

Then came lockdown. The fun of being in the countryside stopped abruptly, and sadly there were no views wide enough for the bulky sphere. Instead, it was a glint of sunlight on a dripping kitchen tap that gave her the next idea. The water was a micro version of the ball, and she was soon experimenting, photographing several drops of it, collected initally onto the delicate coil of an old watch spring. Her droplets got smaller and smaller until she was using a syringe to position them on a single dandelion seed.

The results, artistic and technically impressive, brought her accolades from the photographic fraternity on social media. But Lou felt they lacked something. Sure enough, they showed the detail of whatever was behind them, but focussing kitchen objects into upside down alien species did not compare to outdoors. She felt the world had turned her upside down and confined her, just like the views inside the water drops. She couldn’t wait for the virus to dispel and allow her out with camera equipment and crystal ball.

The only thing close to Lou’s window was an azalea bush, and as the spring season continued it flowered. Its red funnelled blooms were of a rare scented variety, and filled her room with the perfume of the world outside. It was a delight to photograph it, but it was when she noticed the dewdrop one morning, about to drip from one of the petals, that she remembered her obsession with the tiny spheres of water. She grabbed her camera quickly, having no idea what would be captured from behind. When she looked at the result and saw a tiny image of a wren caged by the dewdrop, the world sang softly to her that soon she would be free again.