Nicholas Quirke was spending much of 9 July 2021 preparing for his final trip in China which would embrace four provinces in Chinas North and North East. As they would miss their usual Saturday morning treat of Jian bing he forewent his smoothie for his favourite breakfast. This meant starting the day by an early visit to the hospital for a nuclei acid test. As he was to be in the area Peng suggested they meet after his test and go to Yonghe restaurant. For a version of Yang Zhi Gan Lu (aka: Mango pomelo sago) made with soya milk. It wasn’t far but when the got to the restaurant it was closed for refurbishment and the nearest one was about 6 km away. On this disappointing note they turned around and headed back to the apartment. Nicholas suggested that they order some in and though they weren’t able to enjoy it in the insalubrious atmosphere of Yonghe they did get the delicious drink. He was down a couple of shirts due to an unfortunate blue colour run over his white shirts, he decided to go to Uniqlo to get something extra for his trip which was going to last a nearly 2 weeks. He decided after his greedy start to the day to forgo having lunch and set off about midday for the U-Town Mall. To his surprise despite the early hour the street was full of parents collecting their children from school. It was complete chaos but he bravely battled his way through. Enroute he spotted a small coterie of cyclists, one of whom threw or dropped an empty plastic water bottle on the road. He stopped them as he passed and sent them back to pick it up. There was also some traffic issues at Chang’an avenue and police sent him up the left side of the road and confused him slightly. But he got to the mall and despite the heat had remained relatively dry and was able to try on some polo shirts. He bought a bottle green one for 99 Yuan and then seeing Zara had a sale bought a prison shirt for the same price. He had tea and worked in Teasure before going for what would probably be his last lesson with Willis and Harry. He was saddened by this as he enjoyed their classes. Willis a cheeky, rude but clever boy and Harry very able and a model future CCP candidate. Their topic was dinner and inviting the teacher for dinner and there were some very nice responses. He said goodbye and headed home to have a cart that up with his sister Kate, finish packing and to watch the latest episode of ‘Lisey’s Story’. He had missed out on a chair massage the night before due to his troubles and was subsequently was lulled to sleep by the ministrations of the chair before getting into bed early for their 3.45am rise the next day.