A week of feeling under the weather

Tim scummed to the sickness bug late Sunday night/early Monday morning when that is doing the rounds. Come Monday morning he was in no fit state to walk the dogs or feed the sheep and Alpacas. So I worked from home, after walking the dogs and feeding the stock. Tim spent most of the day asleep on the sofa, along with the dogs. He really was ill!!!! He was off his food nearly a week, which is not like him. It's normally like feeding a bottomless pit. Gradually over the week he's got better.
For me it's been a rather scary drive to the station on a couple of mornings thanks to back ice on the road. On Wednesday the road was shut due to an accident (3 cars), for 2 hours, thankfully no one was seriously hurt. But on Thursday I started with the sore throat and cold that's doing the rounds at work.
But running a smallholding means you can't ignore the animals, they still have to be fed and checked twice a day. Anyway with all the rain we've had just recently, we discovered that one of the drains was silted up. It would have been great to ignore it, but as a result of the blockage, one of the paddocks was wetter than normal, Ghilli and Grommet were sinking up to their hocks in the mud, which is no good for their feet. So we spent Saturday afternoon clearing it out. Tim feeling washed out and me coughing. By the time we had finished, all we could do was collapse on the sofa in front of the fire. But the drain is running and this morning the field is noticeably drier. It must have done us both some good as we both are feeling a lot better and Tim is back to his old eating habits, always hungry!!!!!
Despite it being wet, the weather has been mild and as the ewes are still eating the long grass on the common land, they are eating very little hay, which is good in one way, but not so good in another. There could be a lot of hay to move in late March as it's stacked where we normally put the lambing pens!
Double ear tagging comes into effect this year and the "tome" from Defra arrived this week. Don't know if it's this cold, but I'm struggling to understand it. I've got a couple of trips to London this month so I will take it with me to re-read on the train, along with the new Animal Transport Rules!!!! Don't ask
Hopefully over the coming week we'll both pick up. We have to as the hedge laying gangs are here for the day on Saturday.