"So my first day as a trainee court reporter pretty much went 'That is the fire escape *points* now let's work you until some large veins in your head pop!'

I might be exagerrating. And to my new workplace's credit our fire alarm assembly point is St Paul's Cathedral. How many people can say that?!

Myself and six others (meant to be eight of us originally) have begun learning to use the stenographer machine, which is like a musical instrument only instead of music coming out of it, phonetic words do on a little sheet of till roll.

It has approximately 20 letters on it including two Ts and two Ss. 'Cat' would be spelt 'Kat' because there's no letter C. There's only four vowels. Instead of typing one letter at a time you have to press all the letters of a word. Phonetically.

It is confusing.

I think the best bit of the day was when our trainer let us go just before half 4 and I actually managed to get home (from London, which is a walk, some tube travel, a train journey, another short walk and a drive home in rush hour) in time for Neighbours. Amazing!"

And now back to the present.

I enjoyed today a lot more than yesterday. Even though the course is evidently tough-going I don't feel out of my depth. I think my fellow trainees feel the same. Today we all had much more of a laugh as the first-day nerves had gone and they do all seem really friendly. And we got let out early again, finishing up at 4.15! I hope it continues like this - the training bloke even told us to 'come in around 10.15 tomorrow.'

My daily work routine is thus:

10.00(ish) am - 1.00 pm: Go over lesson(s) from the previous afternoon in cosy work area provided for me plus colleagues.

1.00 - 2.00: Lunch

2.00 - 5.00(supposedly!): More lessons and constant testing of what we have learnt.

I am actually looking forward to tomorrow. Now that really is something.

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