We found the "plague cross" on our door. "DESIGNATED INFECTED AREA". Capitals and fluorescent yellow highlighter, just in case we hadn't noticed. At Checkpoint Charlie, the entrance to our valley, National Park officials had checked our registration, only then allowing us through. Most people were turned away.
Twice, driving home, we slowed to a crawl for the disinfectant barriers. "STAY AWAY" and then "IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY?"
The first barrier is a thick layer of heavily disinfected foam rubber, the second straw and old carpets, the third, at the last farm, high-tech fibre. Here we must stop, to immerse our wellies in the foot bath, while farmers and park officials spray the car.
Last Sunday, it was our turn to work all day in driving snow, spraying cars and farm vehicles with disinfectant. Forget strappy spring fashions, all we'll be wearing for the foreseeable future is stinking wellies.
Kentmere is Postman Pat country but in Pat's famous "Greendale" all postal deliveries were cancelled weeks ago, likewise rubbish collections. E-mails are a godsend but already the garage is overflowing with rubbish. On a nearby farm, the dustbin tells us to "Keep Smiling" in defiant capitals.
It all began so gently, thistledown on the wind. Pigs in Essex, we thought, thank heaven it's down south this time, won't affect us. Then Northumbria, hideously close. Longtown market, in Carlisle, Anglesey . . . Neighbours send sheep to Anglesey. Why?
It's lambing time in the Lake District. The National Park rangers should be toiling round with notices about keeping dogs on leads. The notices on every gate have nothing to do with lambing and might mean shooting every animal in the valley. In Westminster, one million sheep is just a number. In Cumbria, it spells heartbreak.
"Is your journey really necessary?" has become a blunt "STAY AWAY!" in larger capitals. Ironically, through all this, the Lake District has never looked lovelier. First there was Alpine snow, then days of azure skies, shining frosts. After a mercifully swift thaw, it's spring.
And the notices have changed colour, angrily red and forceful. Belt and braces, the parish council has followed the park rangers, putting up yet more notices. STOP! THIS FOOTPATH IS CLOSED. A neighbour lives further along the bridleway. Just walking next door we risk a £5,000 fine.
Mail order has been banned. No clothes, no wine, no books, no flowers, no visitors. No friends, for us, or the children. As a child, living in Manchester, the Peak District was our playground. Small and impressionable, we were taken to the plague village of Eyam, where the courageous villagers isolated themselves from the world to die of the bubonic plague imported from London.
Three weeks ago, we were supposed to be in Manchester, visiting my family and delivering joints of fell-reared Lakeland lamb. Our vast chest-freezer is crammed with meat, chops, boned joints, legs and assorted bones for stock. Panic-buying? Anything but . .. We bought one of our neighbour's animals before this epidemic began.
Born in our valley, probably wandered in front of our car many times and slaughtered by a local butcher, all of 14 miles away. We ate our roast and Monday's Irish stew with a clear conscience but the rest of our meat may have to last us a very long time. After the hideous scenes we've witnessed on TV, we're just not prepared to eat animals which have travelled hundreds of miles for slaughter.
The family farm is at the head of Ullswater. My brother-in-law, a bachelor, farms alone, isolated, and surrounded by stricken farms. My widowed mother-inlaw (83), and housebound, lives in Penrith. Farmer neighbours have urged us not to visit. If we do, and the disease comes to this valley, we couldn't live with ourselves. Their words, not ours. Our youngest is longing to show Gran her brilliant school report, but we must not, dare not, visit.
Our world has become so small it stops at the garden gate. After school, the children should be playing their version of badminton, ferociously energetic, up and down the near-vertical fell. We can see the river bank, the catkins, the first wild daffodils and primroses, but walking there's forbidden. We're still allowed to drive to work or meet the children from school, shepherd them through the disinfectant bath.
That could change with the next briefing from the agriculture ministry. Already, the bus has been forbidden to travel over farmland. All field trips have been cancelled and arrangements are in hand to print lesson notes and post them to us. When my daughter's teacher relayed this message, I reminded him that the post was the first thing to go.
Before all this began, a neighbour was cremating some fallen stock. From my desk, I wondered just why the smell was so disturbing. Then the plague began, and they started showing those 1967 newsreels, skies black with smoke and despairing farmers.
A force beyond our control? Not really. The children asked why God let this happen. God, we suggested, did nothing of the kind. Why should animals travel hundreds of miles and across the seas to their deaths? God never gave us the right to abuse the animals we eat. This outbreak might be traced to imports from foot-and-mouth infected countries. It's time to question the whole global economy and the pursuit of cheap food at any price.