I was clearing grass in the triangle field on Sunday 7th September, when I heard Craig, who was standing at the boundary some 50 feet away, shouting out my surname and something about the trees.

I walked over to within four or five feet to see what his tirade was all about.

Craig Townsend claimed the boundary wall and trees were his and I should have asked his permission to cut down some wood. He was, as usual towards me, very aggressive; telling me that if I wanted wood I had plenty of other trees I could have cut. I pointed out that the boundary was not his and that however if he thought the boundary was his he could discuss things without being abusive. He responded with his common barrage of hate speech about hippies and caravans saying I should leave, remove the caravan and go and live like everyone else in the village. On occasions when I have had reason to talk with Craig he will not respond, saying he wants nothing to do with people like me, so I reminded him and suggested he wrote to me or that he could ask a solicitor to do so.

He then said that I knew the boundary was his as I had previously admitted knocking down a part of the wall on the boundary and by accepting I didn't have the authority to do so later, acknowledged that the boundary wall didn't belong to me. I had, and still have, no idea what he was talking about and said that not only was he unreasonably aggressive but he appeared to be losing the plot. I said that rather than me go and live in the village, maybe it would make more sense for him to go back to his home in the village and take his crackpot ideas and violent and abusive nature with him and then turned and walked away.

I had only walked another few yards when his abuse turned to threats that he was going to sort me out and I turned around to see him pick up a fence post. I asked him what the he was going to do with 'that' whereupon he threw it at me. It hit my head and I fell to the ground. Concerned I arose quickly but he didn't come into the field so I said 'You really are a fucking nutter' and walked away. Craig also walked back off into his field.

I have kept the post, which split when it hit me. The post is quite old and has a somewhat decayed exterior which luckily softened the blow, so I only had a few small grazes on the forehead where it hit

The post split where couple of screws are embedded, weakening that area. This is probably the part that made contact with my head, given the cuts I had.

Luckily for me the nail protruding form the end of post didn't embed itself in my head nor did the post hit my glasses.

I called the police as Craig Townsend has a record of verbal threats and assault, having repeatedly said that if there was no one around he would do something physical.

There were no witnesses so the police think there is little they can do as he will probably deny the attack.

Oh well!

March 16th 2009 The final hearing results were that the claim was dismissed. The judge did overturn Judge Griggs' view that there was no contract, which means that the claim was valid and I can ask for expenses.

1. Stop using the water. Already sorted
2. Remove the extension. Bad wording on my part. The judge pointed out that the contract only required that they disconnect their extension, not remove it. He decided that it would not be in neighbourly interests to do more as the pipe was shortened, capped and buried. I think he actually said, given May Gurney's quote of some £1200 that it wasn't financial prudent to expect them to do more.
3. Pay £60 for excess waterJudge pointed out that I didn't provide any evidence of the water use. Although I did have at the hearing they should have been provided at the start of the claim.
4. Was awarded the £70 cost for getting the police incident reports. Judge went o great lengths to explain to the Townsend's that their attempts to colour me were inappropriate and a waste of time.

January 8th 2009 Have a directions hearing at 11:05 Monday 12th.

Yesterday I drained the water from the pipe in anticipation of Craig Townsend working on capping 'his' extension. The amount of water I extracted from the tap before it emptied was about 45lt, not the best part of 400lt as I was expecting, suggesting that any leak is just before the pipe enters our land proper.

Obvious places of concern are a) where the pipe goes under the track and b) the extension and t-junction just before it leaves the Townsend property.

Today at approx 11am I was invited to see the capping, that Craig did to the Townsend's extension, outside the shed. From what I could tell the work was tidy and there was no leak on first inspection.

I was hoping to ensure he covered it over properly, but he left to get sand and didn't want me to stay on the land. I returned, but Craig told me the sand had been laid and wouldn't allow for me to measure the position of the pipe nor its angle towards the mains, from which would I could have estimated of the position of the junction.

On the water leakage
By time I had turned the tap off some of the recorded 419.8 litres were lost or stored (328.0572 - 327.6379). However the fact remains that the pipeline is full and if it isn't used for a few weeks or a month I may be able to estimate the position of the leak.

Link: https://elf.calstock.org.uk/admin

The ELF trust Admin seems pretty sketchy at times, not surprisingly as most of the work is landscaping and organic food plots.

The most frequent issue is neighbour problems.

Currently they are

• Issues over abuse of water contract with Townsend's
  Link to letters ('The Townsend Tango' requires authorisation to view)
  Update on small claim
• Rubbish being dumped on the land by neighbours at Harewood Gardens
• Use of land by Okel Tor as part of the footpath they have provided to the public
• Unauthorised cutting of trees by the Kings at Trekensa Gardens
• Still have to establish proper understanding of boundary fence with owners of part Harewood House

And of course there is the planning issue.