I haven't mentioned this in the blog since it happened.
Not quite sure why that is, becasue it's not something that I have completely forgotten about.
Nearly, but Not quite. Said Simon.
It is now, I think, eight weeks since The-Son-of-the-Man-Next-Door wrote us that disturbing letter about the alignment of our wall on his (father's) property and demanding that we take it down within seven days.
U remember that?
Really upset us at the time, and has left me with a rather bitter taste in my mouth that has tested my attitude to forgiveness. Still haven't met the man of course, but now have no respect for him at all...
We have heard less than Diddly-Squit since posting our oh-so-polite reply, so we either pitched it just right and he's had a change of heart, or he's quite simpky just forgotten about it.
I've talked about this with friends, and apparently some people are "just like that"??
Excuse me?
There is a part of me that is fighting the temptation ot get in touch with him again and say "Oi, about this letter. Why the f*ck did you write all this crap and then do nothing about it??" but of course that won't help and the whole thing is best left just as it is.
Seems he was just sounding off for the sake of it.
Can people really be that wanky?
Some complex psychology going on there, perhaps...
Som eone suggested that no-one else (esp his father, our neighbour) even knows he wrote the letter in the first place.
This would then give him the opportunity to moan about us to his family for not having finished the wall on his side (left the trench unfilled, incomplete pointing, bits of debris etc) and not fixing the remaining part of his fence to the wall in the corner.
All of which we would have done without question had we not been so unceremoniously shat on in July.
SO he can now moan about this and we look like villains again.
Makes sense in a perverse kind of way I think.
Here's another problem.
His garden is unkept and overgrown, and backs onto a row of garages, including mine. It shouldn't, technically, 'back onto' the garages literally, and both the neighbouring gardens end at a fence about three feet from the baclk of the garages. Just enough room to squeeze down to fetch footballs etc, and for kids to play hide-and-seek.
But the garden of the man in question is such a mess that three-quarters of his fence has fallen down years ago to be overun with creepers, brambles and ivy.
This vegetation is now climbing all over the back of my garage, lifting the roof-felt, causing damp and starting to get in through cracks in the windowsill and under the eaves.
So obviously I want to go behind my garage and cut back the mess, repair the damage and paint the wall with damp proofing stuff.
Not sure if I dare do this, because it will be perceived (in full view of the house - effectively IN his back garden, although technically not) that I am entering his garden without permission and that would cause a whole new can of worms to be opened.
Also from a security point of view, there is absolutely nothing to stop Burglar Bill nipping down behind the garages and into matey's garden. From there, thru the rest of the collapsed fence into the next street and make his getaway into a waiting van with the loot.
Can't get into our garden now - one of the reasons we did the wall in the first place!!
And, to complete the picture, my garage is the first a row of six, starting about six feet from my house. In 1970-something, the owners of this house bought the garage and with it the six feet of land between the garage and the house.
We use this 'gap' to keep firewood in, bags of sand and dustbins.
The fence I mentioned above, which is fallen down and overgrown with ivy, SHOULD extend across behind this six feet 'gap' thus keeping matey's garden safe from invaders from our side. Burglar Betty could, in all honesty, walk up our driveway and down the side of the house to nick our firewood, sand and dustbins - or enter matey's garden that way and from there, thru the rest of the collapsed fence into the next street and make his getaway into a waiting van with the loot. 
I have put up a fence panel across the end of this gap (from the garage to the house) which carries the electric cable to my garage, preventing th eabove scenario of anyone getting thru into the nieghbours garden. Not my garden.
Are you following this??
I don't have to maintain this fence at all, or put any kind of boundary up because its not my garden that you could otherwise walk into from the road.
Trx and I tho have discussed making this permanent (we took it down to allow the builder in to the other side before we got The Letter) and cutting the vegetation back from maybe on the garage roof?
I don't really want to upset anything, but otherwise we are looking at some serious structural repairs to the garage over the winter.
Not fun.
At all.
Suggestions on a postcard, please
