Beetle!!

What a cold day today, it barely rose above freezing all day and the roads were hardly safer than the pavements to walk on. The pavements had thick lumps of ice but the roads had patches of invisible black ice so I really watched where I put my feet!
We pass this old beetle often when out walking. It Just sits in a garden looking very sad. When I was at college our drama lecturer had one just the same. At that time, the early '70s, the most common colours seemed to be this orange and a bright turquoise. The older models came in a dark green and a rust red shade, but these were clearly the 'new' colours of choice. When I bought my only brand new car I chose a beetle, rather newer than this one, or was in 2010, I did love it. It was dark midnight blue.
There's an old joke about two old ladies (probably my age). Both were driving beetles, but one had broken down by the side of the road. What's the problem? asked the other, stopping to help. My car won't go, says lady one, somebody has stolen my engine. Don't worry, says number 2, I've got a spare one in my boot!
You need to be of a certain age for that to be funny, sorry AmyW!

We've not done much today - there seems to be a theme developing here - a couple of walks and of course it's Twelfth Night. The tree and cards and indoor decorations are all down. The magi have arrived at the stable so they will pay their respects for a few more days, before going home by a different route to avoid King Herod. I've decided to leave the lights in the front garden for a while, traditionally decorations can stay till Candlemas. I think we all need something cheerful just now and I do think that they do look nice. They're very clever, run off batteries and have a six hour timer so that they come on around 4.30-5 and go off again by 11. All I'll have to do is replace the (rechargeable) batteries every so often. I'll need to take them out of the magnolia tree before the buds come though.
E had her first day at school today as the child of a key worker and all seems to have gone well. Likewise I was at nursery and seems to have a few of her friends there too so that's good. Still no news of increased hours at school /after school for E which is a worry. K can't leave work that early and they don't want us involved as things are at the moment, different when we have had a vaccine.
Colin's phone weather forecast says it's going to snow quite heavily overnight, mine doesn't. We'll see who is right in the morning.

Keep well and safe everybody. Thank you for the alert to my interesting bit of predictive text yesterday, I am glad I made you smile.