Nicholas Quirke was looking forward to going shopping on 6 January 2021 and even the threat of a minus 18 temperature did not put him off. Firstly though there were many tasks to be completed and the initial duty to commence was the removal of christmas decorations as the last day of Christmas passed. Conveniently it was a Wednesday and the morning activity complemented his usual mid week bout of domestic work. He dusted, vacuumed and mopped, threw in some laundry and completed a couple of admin tasks at the end of which he needed a murderous session in the massage chair. Unfortunately the neighbourhood had implemented post Covid Tier 2 restrictions on deliveries since the latest small cluster in the north east of Beijing. This meant that there were no deliveries to the door and everything had to be collected from the gate. This was unfortunate as Peng had a new floor for the gym arriving and the delivery meant that they had to transport the 13.5 square meters of rubber flooring from the gate to the apartment themselves. The task was completed in a temperature of minus 14 degrees and Nicholas knew in the instant that he went outside and started to shift the ice cold tiles that he would not be embarking on any trek that day and shifting furniture in the warmth was an immensely preferable notion. After lunch of raw food salad, the floor laying began. With the movement of equipment and flooring, the work he had done that morning became completely redundant, nevertheless he threw himself into task till the floor was laid and he was exhausted. There was a lot of rubbish that had been generated and needed to be taken out and Bob the time they were ready to do this and collect some deliveries from the gate the temperature outside had dropped to minus 18. They went out into the icy hell where one of the maintenance men was handling the refuse. There were some items worth keeping and so he took them of their hands. He was only out for 1o minutes but he was absolutely chilled to the bone and even his hand in gloves was frozen. It was his night to attend the online class with Terry and before that they watched an intriguing thriller, ’Every Time I Die’. The class that night was discussing Chinese Television Drama and the students gave the genre a total roasting though it did open his eyes to some of the strange practices that go on in Chinese programme making, especially the fact that many series once filmed are sent to dubbing actors so most C Drama sounds like the same performers all the time. He did not get to bed till midnight and having been stimulated by the conversation it took a while for him to fall asleep.