A Baby Lawyer's First Steps

I am now, amazingly, half-way through my first seat. And just like any baby, whose proud parents record first steps, first words, first teeth, this baby lawyer has milestones of her own. Below are some of the most memorable milestones of my first few months as a graduate solicitor, of course with accompanying gifs.

1. First time I wrote an external letter and signed my name as a Graduate Solicitor ... like an adult

(It doesn't matter that it was just a cover letter to counsel saying "please find enclosed the updated documents to be inserted into the working bundle". It still counts)

2. First time I did a West Wing walk and talk

My trainee friend and I met up in the hallway, walked for a bit while chatting, and then went our separate ways. The moment was slightly ruined when we both said "hey we both just did the West Wing thing!" Next time it will be way cooler.

3. First time I saw naked ladies in the gym changing rooms

Why is it necessary to put your make-up on in the mirror with only your underwear on and no bra?!?!  

4. The first time I was too 'expensive' to work the weekend

So usually, as a trainee, you're the cheapest labour (i.e. you have the lowest hourly rates charged to the client) and so get the more time-consuming tasks. That is, apart from paralegals. Leading up to trial, our poor poor paralegals had to work this weekend and I didn't because I WAS TOO EXPENSIVE!!! I just thought yesssss....I'm outta here

5. First time I realised that the document style code is different to what I used at university

I get very annoyed every time I see a quotation mark after punctuation instead of before (for example, "like this:" instead of "like this":), and when legislation is not italicised, and when they put full stops in acronyms like Q.C. instead of QC. I had no idea the Australian Guide to Legal Citation was so ingrained after law school, but aaarrghh it's so frustrating!

6. First time I finished at 2am

The time 2am has always had a particular significance to me, symbolising the plight of the commercial law trainee. It's probably then not a milestone to be 'celebrated' exactly, but in good news it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Not sure if anyone else finds this, but on late nights I tend to alternate between this...

...and this...

7. The first time I was taken to the stationary room and told that I could take ANYTHING THAT I LIKED

Including those pens that can rub out!

I hope you enjoyed my list of milestones so far, see you all next week!

Time recording - AWK.AWK.02

You're three months into your training contract. You feel like you're getting the hang of things. You understand when it's appropriate to use "Dear", "Hi" or just the person's name in an email. You've worked out when is a good time to get to work, and when you can slip out without having to ask that potentially catastrophic question: "is there anything else you need from me?" You've worked out your favourite combination of foods to reach the dinner budget limit when you're working late. It's even been ages since the last time you had an entire conversation on auto-pilot because you were trying to frantically remember the person's name.

You're like:

But don't get cocky.

Remember that statistically, people at all stages of the legal hierarchy have recorded, and regularly do record, time under AWK.AWK.01. Awkward Encounters can strike at any time, taking up valuable minutes of your life that you'll never get back. And those minutes need to be recorded.

To assist you, here are some further examples from my friends' and my experiences over the last month, of common scenarios which can be recorded under AWK.AWK.01:

1. Bathroom Encounters

This is a classic conundrum. You see a colleague in the hallway on the way to the bathroom, or worse, you both come out of the cubicles at the same time. You weren't prepared for this. You rack your brains for small talk. Unfortunately the weather hasn't been interesting, and so you abandon this safe, well-trodden path. What do you say? 

You end up mumbling something incoherent, and the person stops and looks at you confused. You say "Sorry?" And your colleague says: "Did you just say, 'it wasn't me?'". He glances at the toilet, alarmed. Possibly the worst thing somebody could think you said in or around a bathroom. 

Awkward bathroom encounters are always recordable under AWK.AWK.01.

2. Cultural differences

This encompasses a range of awkward behaviours. This particular post focuses on one such encounter: Australians and North Americans have a habit of speech that does not seem to work in the UK, that is, we say the worst thing you could possibly say in a given scenario, but sarcastically. The minutes of awkward silence after you make such a joke, and the unsuccessful digging upwards to save the situation, are all accountable. Examples:

• To your supervisor: "It's my birthday tomorrow! You're lucky I'm not calling in sick! ... [silence] ... I mean...not that I would call in sick, because that's not what you do when you're an adult. I was more talking about how when you were little, if it was a special day, your mum would let you take the day off school...[silence]...but I guess that doesn't really apply here...um...yeh".

• On the topic of clothing standards in the workplace: "Yeh that's right, wear shorter shirts! This is a heels-only workplace!". Cue Antipodean laughter. Brits are silent.

• To a feminist partner: "I've been really looking forward to starting work so I don't think I'll take a year off" ... [silence] ... [trying to fill awkward silence] ... "but at least I'll have maternity leave!" You then get a lecture about how maternity leave isn't a holiday.

• To a hard working associate: "So...busy day today huh?"   "No actually it's been really quiet". You think he's being sarcastic, and say "oh, yeh I can tell by your general lazy attitude that you wouldn't have done anything today" ... [silence and look of horror on associate's face] ... "oh! sorry I didn't realise that you were being serious, I thought you were joking, I was just joking and playing along....but you weren't joking, ah, ok well ..."

• To your supervisor: "yep that's right, my boyfriend's arriving tonight. Don't know how I'll concentrate! Ha ha" ... [silence] ... "I mean, of course I'll concentrate, I was just saying..." Still paranoid he thinks you won't concentrate so you send a follow-up email that night: "Just making sure you know that I was joking when I said that I wouldn't concentrate". He is surprised by the email and reassures you that he didn't take you seriously. The next day he wrongly accuses you of not being able to concentrate, proving that you were right all along.

I repeat! Sometimes we say the worst possible thing sarcastically because in our home countries, this is considered humorous. There is nothing worse than making a joke that would traditionally work, but instead, falls flat:

In other words, my fellow Aussies and North Americans, maybe just record this time under AWK.AWK.01. 

3. Regretting 'Past You'

You feel like you've come a long way over the past 3 months. If anything, you're quite proud of the way you've been recording your time...like a boss. Your supervisor suddenly sends around an email chastising the group for the sloppy narratives you've all been writing when recording your time. He uses an example: the phrase "Walking upstairs to deliver DVD to document management team" is unprofessional. You laugh to yourself: who would write "walking upstairs"?? 

Your supervisor then tells you that you recorded this phrase 4 weeks ago.

The time spent in embarrassment, plus the time re-telling this story to your housemate who points out that it was irresponsible of you to not record your time "walking downstairs", and the time spent realising that there WERE no stairs, and that you had actually taken the lift, is all accountable under AWK.AWK.01.

Just remember...

That we all experience awkwardness, and that at the end of the day, we're all being awkward together

Londonisms

Taking a break from work stories, I thought this week I would write about some of my favourite Londonisms. Over the past few months, I've really been getting to know East London and the theatre district, but there's still so much to explore. In the meantime, here are some things that I have found absurd about London, or the people living in London, and I hope you enjoy!

Hating on the tube

As somebody who walks to work, I adore the tube. What's not to like about an extensive underground railway system, connecting almost every part of London, with trains that come once every 2 minutes? Instead, anyone who's travelled on the tube in peak hour has clearly been scarred by the experience: "no, trust me, it's really bad. You're crushed, people smell, I hate people" is how it generally goes. My friend told me that she was once pushed up against a man whose breath was so bad that she had to get out at the next station for fear of vomiting. I got on the tube the other day - as usual, on a lazy weekend when the tube is at its most delightful  - and I saw this ad, which made me laugh so hard: it just perfectly summed up how workers see the tube.

I try to explain to people that in Melbourne, I will sometimes have to wait 40 minutes for a train. 40 minutes! And even then, we still have very packed peak hours. All I get is "no, trust me, it's really bad. You're crushed, people smell, I hate people".

Hating on tourists

Now I actually partake in this one. When I was at Oxford, I got pretty sick of tourists. My friends and I had tourists filming us on the way to exams (which is really the last thing you need at that point) and taking photos once they realise that "you do even go here" (à la Mean Girls)

I thought I had put those days behind me, but oh did my hatred of tourists come roaring back when I returned to the UK! Slightly different this time - because I'm an immigrant and nobody takes photos, mistaking me for a Londoner. But also the same, in the general annoyance that people who live and work here have against people who don't live and work here. Londoners will not go shopping on Oxford Street or in Covent Garden for example - they're right that it's absolute madness on the weekends. My personal pet peeve is the slow walking. The meandering, ambling walk of someone with too much damn time on their hands and who is annoyingly looking around and appreciating the beauty of this city on purpose just to piss everyone else off. The way they walk in groups, taking up the whole footpath, it makes me want to (again thank you Mean Girls):

Sun comes out, rush to the pavement

As someone who comes from a country with no ozone layer and 'slip slop slap' our national mantra, the way that Brits flock outside the moment the sun comes out is completely foreign. When I say outside, I mean literally any part of the sunny spot that they can get. There is no goal of finding "dappled shade" (as my law friends back home used to call it) - any part of the footpath covered in shade is empty, and any part with sun is packed with people. This was Broadway Market a few weeks ago:

"The shade moved but, man, I'm already sitting down with my beer"

"There were no tables but we desperately needed some sun. 

Not desperately enough to take off my hat though".

I actually get it now. I don't think Australians fully understand the oppressiveness of having grey skies for months at a time, only for a hot blue sky to open up and the serotonin to flood your system with delicious happiness. It's no wonder the NHS has a page dedicated to seasonal affective disorder. Not too long until summer now!

Policeman at intersections

This is truly bizarre. At perfectly functioning intersections, policemen are stationed on each corner and watch the traffic. My first thought was that there was a blitz on jaywalkers who were putting their lives and the lives of vehicle drivers at risk. But no. People jaywalk right in front of these policemen, cutting through traffic on their way to work, and the policemen DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Why the hell are they there?? As someone who has been fined $52 for jaywalking (yes that's right), I felt particularly resentful in the beginning, but now I just dash across the street right under their noses with the rest of them.

I promise to update you all if I find out the reason for this madness.

Theatre snobbery

Last but not least, if you're a Londoner, you don't go to big flashy West End musicals. You might have seen Phantom or Les Mis when you were young, but now you're much too important and refined to put up with such ostentation. The less well-known the play the better, preferably with a political agenda. One man shows are good for this, interpretive dance even better, with a seating capacity of 20.

Joking aside, one great thing about living in London, is that we get to see FAMOUS PEOPLE in plays. Because you're living here, you can book tickets months in advance, and snap up the tickets going for ridiculously cheap prices. My friend a few weeks ago saw Kevin Spacey! I have even climbed on board and bought tickets to see Nicole Kidman in a play in September. Do I know what the play's about? No idea. She's famous and I got £10 tickets so I'm going!! I slowly feel like I'm getting the hang of this London thing :-)


I'll be taking a break next weekend because my fiancé will be coming to visit!!! I'm counting down the days! :-D

War Stories: How to Deal with Making Mistakes

A real theme this week for me has been learning how to deal with making mistakes. This week I realised that in a witness statement already served on the other side, I had written a few incorrect cross-references: I felt embarrassed, like I'd let my team down, and that someone reading the witness statement on the other side would, not being able to find the document on the right page, think to themselves "the person who did these cross-references has NO IDEA WHAT SHE'S DOING!! JUDGEMENT JUDGEMENT JUDGEMENT".

This post is about the marvellous, heart-warming, response to making mistakes which seems to exist amongst lawyers, which I will call the 'War Stories' effect.

Essentially what I've found is that, if I'm feeling a bit down because I made an embarrassing mistake, someone will say to me: "you think that mistake is bad, I once [insert worse version of mistake that they have made]". It's wonderful!! It makes you feel so much better! It reminds me of the lawyers' equivalent of the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch: "only five referencing mistakes? YOU WERE LUCKY"

Quickly escalating to:

So far examples of this that I've come across have been:

• My friend asked the printing centre to print the wrong documents and wasted a few hundred pounds. Feeling so embarrassed and guilty, she confessed to an associate. He said (I'm paraphrasing here): "only a few hundred pounds?? You were lucky! I once asked the printing centre to print all the wrong versions of some documents and wasted £12,000!"

• A more senior associate told me about how as a newly qualified (NQ) she accidentally disclosed two privileged documents to the other side. Her supervisor dealt with it expertly, explaining to the client what happened, and the other side were also professionals about it - deleting the documents before they had read them. But her supervisor also told her (I'm paraphrasing again): "Only two privileged documents? You were lucky! I know of a firm who accidentally disclosed 50,000 privileged documents to the other side!"

• An NQ told me how he'd been asked to draft an email for his supervisor to send, and prefaced the email with: "See below for the draft email, please let me know if you would like me to take out [this part] or whether I should leave it in". He then accidentally sent that to the other side who responded "I am sure that your supervisor would approve of the email, and would have asked you to leave it in!" Compare this mild embarrassment to the classic "reply all" scenario, or where you accidentally email the other side a privileged document, etc. 

In other words, as a baby lawyer, it feels like you are being let out into the world on your own, and no matter how diligent or careful you are, you are going to mess up sometimes:

As my senior associate said: as a trainee most (if not all) of your mistakes are going to be inconsequential. This means you need to learn how to deal with them now, so when the time comes that you make a "colossal" (her word) mistake, you know how to approach it. The advice that I've been given from my team, which I've found incredibly useful, is:

• adopt a problem-solving attitude: move on, and think to yourself 'how can I fix this?' Then present both the problem and a potential solution to your supervisor
• learn to separate your personal self from your work self: making a mistake, or losing a case, or not getting the exact outcome that your client wants - these are not reflections on you as a person. This is part of your job.

And lastly, you are working in a team. As my senior associate put it: nothing is just your fault. There is a system in place where those above you will be responsible for allocating you work, making sure you're well-prepared, and checking your work (if need be). If something slips through the cracks, it is everyone's responsibility. I'm not saying that every group or every law firm sees it in this way, but I am lucky to be part of a solid seven person team working on one big case, and in practice, it means that there are always people to help you up when you fall down:

I do though think that a lot of groups see it this way.

Arguably the best part about making so many little mistakes in your first few months, is that you feel AMAZING AND SUPER QUALIFIED AND CONFIDENT when you DON'T make a mistake!! SUCH LAWYER! SO EXPERT! Now when I do something completely on my own, with no (or hardly any) mishaps, this is how I feel....

...only for the cycle to start again :-)

Legalspeak in London Law Firms

We all know that lawyers have their own language, and stereotypically they're made up of very old-fashioned terms: 'herein', 'aforementioned', 'forthwith'. Even better is the Latin that we relished learning in law school: 'inter alia', 'prima facie', 'amicus curiae', 'caveat', 'erga omnes' and 'a priori'.  In reality, these are never to be used to clients and lawyers are moving away from that 'legalese'. Even so, I have still found language to be one of the strangest parts of my new job. I thought this post could be about those weird words and maddening mix-ups that I've experienced so far in my first two months.

What lawyers sounded like to me in my first few weeks

Weird words

Some words that are thrown around casually in law firms are those that you quickly get used to, but on reflection realise that they are not actually normal. One such term is 'capacity'. An associate might come up to you and ask 'do you have capacity?' To a non-lawyer this seems bizarre, but it actually just means 'do you have time to do this task?' My confusion stemmed from what 'capacity' means in contract law: someone who doesn't have capacity to sign a contract would be a minor, someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs, someone with a mental illness etc. They morally shouldn't be held to the contract that they signed. So when someone first asked me 'do you have capacity?' I thought to myself 'yes...I am of sound mind and body. I'm able to sign a contract. Do I have to sign a contract or something?'

Other terms that pop up all the time are 'flag it' and 'make a note' - if there's a potential problem up ahead, I'm going to 'flag it'. The first time I pointed something out to an associate and he asked me to 'make a note', I genuinely had to ask him 'do you literally mean make a note, as in I write up a note and save it on my computer, or I write it down on a piece of paper, or I just make a note in my head and remember it, or I email it to you? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN??' Turns out it just means write it down somewhere and remember it. Similarly if we have to get an associate to 'sign off' on something, that doesn't mean they actually sign their name on the document, it just means they have to approve it.

Other words are just plain weird. An email from counsel (i.e. a barrister) referred to 'bumph'. I had to look this up, it means 'useless or tedious printed material'. Another word which even spell-check didn't recognise was 'scupper', or as it appeared in the document, 'scuppered'. i.e. if we don't make this application to court, our claim will be 'scuppered'. I think it means 'thwarted'. Literally, it means 'a hole in a ship's side to carry water overboard from the deck'. My reaction?

Maddening mix-ups

In Australia, a 'file' is a document. E.g. 'this folder has 200 files in it'. In the UK, a 'file' means a folder or binder. This is an almost verbatim conversation I had with the printing centre in my second week:

• Me: 'Hi, I'd like to have these documents printed please. Have I filled in the form correctly?'
• Printing centre: 'Yes that all looks good, how many files will you need printing?'
• Me...stunned: 'Um...how many files? I'm not sure...I mean hundreds, there will be hundreds if not 1000 files. Do you want me to go back to my computer and count them all?'
• Printing centre: '1000 FILES??? We've never been asked to print 1000 files before. Are you sure you need 1000 files printed??'
• Me...even more confused: 'I mean maybe it's just hundreds....I don't know, but there are A LOT of files'.
• Both slowly realising that we're not talking about the same thing.
• Printing centre man holds up a folder: 'I mean, how many of these will you need printed?'
• Me....light bulb moment: 'Ooh, you mean a folder! Just seven'.

In my group a lot of the PAs (secretaries) that I work with are from Essex, and when I see them in the morning they always ask "ah YOU all riiight?" It's hard to describe it by writing it down. But my first reaction every time was 'Yes...why, don't I look all right? Do I look tired? Maybe I look tired. Maybe that's why they're asking if I'm all right'. Turns out it just means 'how are you?' so that you have these bizarre conversations where one PA will ask the other 'are you all right?' and the other says 'good thanks.' So strange.

An experience that my house mate went through, and this is rare, was when an associate asked her to research a topic. She tried to ask him to be more specific, and he replied: "I just want you to canvass the legal ecosystem on that question". WHAT??? Canvass the legal ecosystem?? My poor house mate's reaction:

Emails

Lastly, I just wanted to show how strange lawyers emails are to each other. I think this must stem from the idea that at some stage, if we ever go to court and if these emails aren't subject to privilege, they might have to be disclosed to the other side, so we should make these emails sound official. If it's not that, then I have no idea why we write emails the way we do.

We could be having a friendly discussion about the task, making jokes, being normal, and my associate will then end by saying that he'll send me the relevant document. Then I'll get this:

'Name,

As discussed, please find attached the current version of the witness statement.'

Or another one is 'Further to the email below...' or 'By way of update...' And you can forget about saying "Hi"!!. For the first few weeks, the difference in tone between face-to-face discussions and follow-up emails, really confused me. Now I just fall into line and write emails like everyone else! Occasionally I'll try to quietly subvert the system and add a smiley face or exclamation mark in there :-) !!! :-) !!! :-) !!!

Thanks to everyone who reads these posts, I've really found it to be a fun hobby and I look forward to writing these every weekend. Until next time!


Post-script: today I was reading a document and didn't understand the phrase: please refer to paragraph 1 of our letter of 1 April 2015 "resent under" our letter of 27 April 2015. I thought to myself 'oh great, ANOTHER weird British phrase' and asked my supervisor what the term 'resent under' meant. I pronounced it 'reh-sent', like 'crescent'. He said 'I think you mean re-sent, as in, they sent the document again'. FML.

Time recording - AWK.AWK.01 - Awkward Encounters

Last week my friend and I were doing the usual swap of embarrassing trainee stories. She was telling me about the time a partner left a voice mail on her phone, saying that he'd like to meet up to discuss what they were talking about yesterday. She of course had no idea what he was talking about (or who he was) and it took 15 minutes for her and her PA to work out who he meant instead. The funniest part of the story, was when, at the end, she said in a genuine, frustrated voice, "but what I wanted to know is, how do I bill that time??" It made me laugh so hard! For the non-lawyers reading this, we have to divide up our time into categories: some of it we can charge to the client (called 'billable time'), some is non-chargeable and some falls in categories in between.


AWK.AWK.01

This post is dedicated to a new category of time: AWK.AWK.01. This groups together all of those awkward moments that we, as trainees, encounter weekly if not daily. While realistically, it's not chargeable, it is accountable: a form of 'learning and development' if you will.

Examples of time that can be recorded under AWK.AWK.01

For the first few weeks as a trainee, it was difficult to know which activities should be categorised under which heading, and what kind of narrative (description) you should write. 

A slightly unnecessary Will Gardner gif because I love The Good Wife

Here then are some real life examples, from my and my friends' experiences, of the kind of activities that can be recorded under AWK.AWK.01:

• This time includes the one hour spent researching a list of experts, compiling their areas of expertise, published papers and credentials, only to find out that all of them were dead.

• You were told you could go to the vacation student drinks as long as you kept checking your work phone for when you needed to go back to your desk. You suddenly remembered to check your phone, and saw that you received an email ONE HOUR ago from your associate. So you ran breathlessly to the associate's office and started vomiting apologies and excuses as to why you were an hour late. The 2 minutes spent running, the 3 minutes spent apologising, plus the 1 minute where the associate tells you that if you had read said email, you would know that it said "please don't worry about coming in", are all able to be recorded under AWK.AWK.01

• You are working late in the office. Technology is failing all around you, and it seems that everything you touch turns to crap. So you make a Simpsons reference to your associate, saying that next thing you know you'll be pouring a bowl of cereal and the cereal will catch fire:  

 

Not only does she not get said reference, but it turns out that you forgot to hang up on a phone call to another associate, leaving a 3 minute voice mail message on his machine during which you made this joke. The time spent telling the failed joke, and the time the associate spent listening to the voice mail message, are all accountable. The feeling of pure gratification when the associate tells you that he listened to your 3 minute voice mail message, and got the Simpsons reference, is not awkward at all, and therefore cannot be recorded under this time. Possibly a similar category of “Narrow Wins” should also be implemented.

•  You are pushing a trolley laden with boxes full of paperwork, and you head towards the escalator. You accidentally ram the trolley into the first step, tipping the boxes back onto you, spilling the paper everywhere. The time spent watching hundreds of sheets of paper make their way slowly up the escalator, like a white waterfall of shame; the time spent realising that a small crowd had gathered at the top of the escalator to watch the scene; as well as the time spent collecting all said sheets of paper, may all be recorded under AWK.AWK.01

• An incident affectionately named as the “Matisse Fiasco”: the awkward silence that follows a joke you make to a partner, where you compare a rough drawing you made as part of a bonding activity to Matisse, and the partner very seriously responds “Matisse would never draw that”. This awkward silence, as well as your awkward laughing to cover your uncertainty as to whether this response was serious or possibly a joke at your expense, both fall under AWK.AWK.01:

The important thing to remember, is that this time is accountable: it is not wasted, it is valuable, it is shaping you into the associate that you will become. And if that future associate happens to be more forgiving of trainees and able to have a laugh as a result, then all the better!

PS I feel that AWK.AWK.01 Awkward Encounters will become an ongoing series.

First Impressions of East London

I have been living in East London for almost three months now, so I think I'm qualified to write about my first impressions, though not much more than that! East London, as a label, describes the northeastern part of London, also known as the "East End" (think East Enders!). In my life, it means the districts of Shoreditch, Hackney, Dalston, Old Street, Bethnal Green, Hoxton. East London brings with it cries of "oooh very trendy" and "omg you live walking distance to work, so jealous!" and "is it safe?". In other words, it's a formerly grungy area, then very hip with lots of artists and students moving in, and finally in the process of being gentrified, with business people and lawyers like me moving in and scaring away all the cool people.

What I love about it is the mix of people: East Londoners who have lived in the area for decades, slightly grumpy with the new crowd and keeping to themselves, hipsters with long beards (men), Doc Martins (women) and shaved heads (either), families with young children in prams, tourists on weekends, and lastly, yuppies like me. Maybe we're the reason these neighbourhoods are no longer cool. Shoreditch, for example, was the hipster district to the point of becoming a verb - "Dalston has been Shoreditched". Even though now I encounter mostly tourists in Shoreditch, there are still some great finds, such as independent coffee houses and great street art:


Also young people still queue for fun new things, like the Cereal Killer Cafe, which is a cafe that trades in nostalgia and serves 120 different types of cereals. "Don't you (forget about me)" by Simple Minds was playing when I walked in, followed by Natalie Imbruglia's Torn - creating an 80s and 90s ambiance, which I adored.

My friend and I ordered cereal 'cocktails'

Besides the good coffee and multitude of vintage stores, my other favourite thing about East London, as a region, is the markets! I live within walking distance of two fantastic markets, which single-handedly make me glad that I made this move to London. The first is Columbia Flower Market, which takes place along a bustling road lined with flower sellers, calling out in various London accents phrases like "roses for £5!" or "fresh tuplips!". Flowers are sold from rustic wooden boxes, tourists take photos with large SLR cameras, and at the end of the street two smiling buskers play guitar in the style of Django Reinhardt (think the soundtrack of Chocolat). The surrounding area is then filled with people returning to their cars, taking the bus or heading out for breakfast, holding large bunches of flowers. It really brightens my Sundays :)

The other market that I have been enjoying is Broadway Market. This market is a mix of delicious baked goods, savoury items, fruits, vegetables, cheeses and artisan chocolates. It takes place along the street named, no points for guessing, Broadway Market, which runs from London Fields to the Regent Canal and is adorably lined with boutique eateries, bookshops and record stores. (A few real estate agencies intrude on this ambiance). Last week a man was handing out vouchers for 'yoga classes for locals', which I thought was particularly apt. I usually go to Broadway Market on my weekend jog, which means I don't get to sample any of the yummy things! I need to change my strategy.

Delicious, delicious cheese

One of the great stores along Broadway Market 

Overall, I'm so glad I chose to live in East London, even if as an Australian lawyer I feel a bit like an intruder on this vibrant scene. But in slowly cultivating a list of my favourite local places, I may eventually feel that I belong. I leave you with one of my favourite pieces of street art I've seen so far: very small and near the ground, so that I almost missed her. Til next week!