Nicholas Quirke was laughing at himself on 25 April 20221 as the highlight of his day was on the subway when a party of senior citizens all trying to find a seat caused a lot of fuss. Complaining that there were no seats, getting people to move and though qualifying as a senior citizen himself, he decided they were in more need than him and he gave up his seat. Within two minutes at the next stop they all got off and he and the others who had given up their space looked incredulous that such a commotion over seating had occurred. There was visible outrage and amusement in the myriad eyes that peeped over face masks. It was the minutiae of daily life that often stood out in the routine business of going about ones day and though the purpose of his Sunday was to get to the Poly Theatre with Peng to collect tickets for the Pillow Man which they had booked some time ago to go and see, his constant chuckling over the needless rumpus that the pensioners had caused would stay with him for sometime. Unfortunately dates with their next expedition clashed with the performance he had been looking forward to, and instead they were donating the tickets to Peng’s parents. It seemed a complicated task as identity checks were conducted at the theatre holding someone else’s tickets was not acceptable. They wandered round the foyer trying to resolve the issue and in the end they left and it would be the responsibility of Mr Guo and Mrs Wang to resolve. There was still sometime before he was due to have a lesson with Jean at 4pm and they went to Teasure to do some work. He would normally have taught Michael and Apple in the morning but as the Labour holiday from May 1st was approaching everyone had to work and the children had to attend school. The public holiday lasted a week, but the citizens of China needed to make up the time they were given off, which seemed somehow unfair. As he would be away from the following day a lesson with Jean after her school day seemed a fair compromise. At home he managed finally to have face time with his sister Kate and catch up with family news. It was an early flight to Kunming in the morning and he would need to be up by 4 am and he followed the axiom ‘early to bed, early to rise’ and by 22.00 he was asleep.