Is it just ME

Or is pottery catnip for older women?

WHAT is it about reaching a certain point in your life that makes you suddenly think, hmm, I don’t have enough wonky pots in my life, I really need to learn how to make them and give them away to all of my friends, or at least those who haven’t been similarly touched by the ceramic claws of clay?

Because there are a lot of us out there — a secret coven of women of a certain age (and often of a certain girth) with a similar taste in voluminous clothing, who slink off during their free time to caress the sides of a potter’s wheel with their lessthan-slender thighs.

Oh joy, call me a cliche, but I’ve found my tribe.

It was never something that appealed to me — all that mud and mess — like playschool for the 1950s Plasticine generation.

I didn’t want to wear a linen smock and have a

‘I proudly bring home my collapsed mugs like a pre-schooler on Mother’s Day’

scarf tied round my head at a jaunty angle.

But along with those other middle-aged pursuits — like a fondness for garden centres and membership of the Monty Don fan club — the urge to potter sneaked up on me.

It was helped along by binge-watching The Great Pottery Throw Down, resulting in a crockerysmashing crush on Keith Brymer Jones, the weeping host who is the crafty woman’s answer to Casanova.

Next thing I knew, I was signing up to do classes at the local college and proudly bringing home asymmetrical collapsed mugs with upside-down handles, like a pre-schooler on Mother’s Day.

It has quickly progressed to perusing kiln catalogues in bed and worrying more about soggy bottoms than my own saggy one.

I’ve become an addict and I have a dozen

mismatched plates to prove it.