At the moment I'm taking a beginner's pottery class every Saturday morning in Hong Kong, where I work as an accountant. It's in a small studio in Sham Shui Po, up three flights of stairs in an old industrial building.
The class runs from ten until twelve thirty, and there are eight of us, sitting around a long wooden table covered in clay dust, with three pottery wheels against the wall. The teacher, Ms Chan, is a retired art teacher in her sixties who has the patience of a saint. The students are a real mix. There's a university student, a retired engineer, two nurses who come together after their night shift, and a young mother who brings her baby in a sling. Each week Ms Chan demonstrates one technique, like making a bowl by hand or centring clay on the wheel, and then we try it ourselves while she walks around correcting us. Most of my early bowls collapsed, but last month I finally made a set of cups that are slightly wonky but usable.
I decided to take it for a couple of reasons. My job involves sitting in front of numbers all week, and I felt I'd lost any creative side I used to have. I wanted something I could do with my hands, where the result was physical rather than on a screen. I also needed a way to switch off. When you're working with clay on the wheel, you have to concentrate completely, otherwise it flies apart, so for two hours I genuinely forget about work emails. And, honestly, it's been a lovely way to meet people I'd never normally come across.