Give and take: I went on a volunteering holiday in Dorset – and learned stone masonry in return | Volunteering holidays

I climb the ladder leading to the scaffold tower and haul myself on to the platform, followed by the bucket of cement I have mixed myself. I am about to “lay a bed” for a stone window seal and “point up the wall”. If you had asked me this morning, as I sat nursing my coffee in the dining room of the Othona Community near Bridport, Dorset, what either of these things meant, I wouldn’t have had a clue. But somehow, in the course of the morning, I have become a stonemason. That’s the thing about volunteering: in giving your time to a good cause, it allows you to also grow in confidence, stretch yourself and learn something new.

The Othona Communities in Essex and Dorset are dedicated to simple living and a down-to-earth spirituality centred around Christianity, but are open to all, particularly those who feel uncertain of their faith or are on the margins of traditional church going. They offer retreats on everything from writing and singing to astronomy. I am here for one of their regular residential working holidays.

The community’s stone-clad guesthouse is in six acres of gardens amid the pine-scented woodlands above Chesil Beach, where groups of men and women are gathering apples from the orchards, making compost bins and laying turf. As they work alongside each other with the sun on their backs, friendships are forming and confidences are shared.

Everyone’s skills are valued: two women are spending the day making new curtains for the guest rooms. “I love sewing,” one of them says, “but I never find the time to do it at home.” Another makes the best Dorset apple cake ever: sweet, crunchy and gooey, perfect after a day of grafting.

Stone masonry is not part of my natural skill set, but having recently bought an ancient house, I am keen to learn and welcome the instruction I receive from the community’s builder and a fellow volunteer who turns out to be a building surveyor. Together, they show me how to mix concrete and wield a trowel and hawk, the name for the board that holds the mortar.

Over the past few years, I have regularly taken time out to volunteer for a few days at Othona. On the journey down I sometimes wonder why, when my own garden is a jungle and my house is…