‘This is pretty therapeutic’: a pottery retreat in Spain’s Alpujarras

In the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Andalucía, our writer finds that processing and shaping clay helps him filter out negative thoughts

I’m sitting on the ground with seven others, huddled around a mass of lumpy, grey matter that quickly turns to powder under the pounding of hammers. Beside us are a small dipping pool, some mulberry trees and a whitewashed house crawling with purple bougainvillaea, from which two dogs drift in and out to inspect our work.

“This is pretty therapeutic, isn’t it?” someone says above the clattering of tools, as flower-dappled light dances on a canopy that’s shielding us from the hot Andalucían sun.