Kite Studios
It is Monday morning. You have just dropped the kids off at school after a gruelling two-hour marathon of getting up, breakfast, school uniform panics etc, and you enter the quaint artist’s studio in a quiet enclave of town. Francis, our tutor, greets us with a lump of clay, a cup of coffee and a healthy dose of laid-back. I have wanted to get back to a pottery workshop since I learnt it at school. It was the only artistic activity that I was in any way not rubbish at.
I am let loose on the wheel. It is just like Ghost, pressing the bowl between my knees as I centre my lump of clay and ‘feel’ my way to producing a pot of any obvious shape. It is a tremendous feeling.

Emily and I learn three types of bowl-making. Much to Emily’s chagrin, she has been instructed to make more and more long sausage-shaped pieces of clay to ‘coil’ a huge bowl. It is beautiful but she would much rather be on the wheel. Finally allowed to finish off on the wheel, her creation is more of a masterpiece than mine but for experience you can't beat the feel of the spinning wheel.

Kite Studios adult pottery classes run on Monday mornings from 13 September,
9.30am–12pm, £20 per class. Priory Mews, 2B Bassein Park Road, Bassein Park
Road, London W12 2 020 85766278 www.kitestudios.org

We also like the sound of these other pottery courses running in London:

Parade Mews Pottery - SE27
This South London pottery offers Adult daytime and evening classes throughout the year for all abilities from beginners to advanced students.  They also run Children's term time and summer courses.  For more information visit:  www.parademewspottery.co.uk

North Street Potters- Clapham
Clapham's North Street Pottery offers evening, day and weekend classes, along with other fun packages.  Spaces on the adult term courses are limited so you must book in early.  For more information visit:  www.northstreetpotters.com

City Lit
City Lit is a large organisation offering part-time adult education. They offer a variety of potting courses for all abilities, with classes running from their studio in Covent Garden.  For full details of all that is on offer, visit: citylit.ac.uk