Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (and old fences make my neighbor a pain in the ass)

We have an old house. Pretty much everything around it is old, too. We have an old, old fence between us and our newer neighbor (newer in the sense that he hasn't lived there as long as we have lived in our house and newer in that he has a new-ish house in contrast to most of them on our street). Anyway, he's been trying for two years to get us to replace the fence between our houses. He first brought it up to us before we went to Australia and we put him off. Then he started on about it to the property manager when we were still in Australia, and we said we would deal with it when we got back.

About two weeks after we got back, he started in on it. He wanted to put up a metal (as in corrugated iron) fence, which we didn't want. He also wanted us to pay for all the materials and he would do the work. We tried to put him off but he's been such a pain that we finally said, ok let's do it. He keeps trying to get us to buy materials I'm sure have fallen off the back of a truck from his cash-only mates, which I've resisted as I don't really agree with it and I kind of don't trust him to give him cash and expect him to turn up with what we need. Anyway, we've bought the palings for the fence and he's got the rails and the bolts.

A lot of preparatory work has to be done in our yard to enable this to happen. So, the Kiwi and I spent the entire Easter weekend (four days) cutting down trees, digging out old rose bushes and dismantling part of the fence. We got part of it down yesterday and today when we went out to start taking down the rest, the aforementioned pain in the ass neighbor - known to all as Mr. Ride On due to his ride on mower - other people in our town are Mr. Poos (the septic tank guy) and Madame Pavlova (the queen of the town or so she thinks)- comes out to "help" us. Now, the Kiwi and I have a way of working - mostly I do what the Kiwi says, but we are able to read each other and work out how we are going to do something before we do it - we're not so much into the rip shit and bust school of work. However, now that there's a man on the scene (no offense, BK), he immediately takes charge of the entire operation. Now, on the best of days this guy annoys the hell out of me, but today he got to the Kiwi too. We just get so irritated with his constant suggestions for how we do everything. We keep trying to tell him that we are very busy people with jobs that require lots of hours (and in the case of the Kiwi, a different city to work in) and that we have limited capacity to do things on his timetable. He, being retired, has nothing but time to not only do projects but also to meddle in other peoples bidness. And, because we clearly are incapable of doing things ourselves (such a pity, no men folk to be found) he feels it is somehow his male, I grew up in the 40s mentality right, nay, obligation to take over whenever we are outside doing something. Someday he is going to get an earful from me because I got no time for his crap. None. Nada.

So, anyhow, we got half the old fence down today and did a bit more to prepare the area. He's going to pick up the palings tomorrow and then the building will commence. He's already started putting up the rails. I've got stain for the fence as soon as it goes up (again it was his helpful suggestion that I paint the boards before they get put up because he doesn't think I'll do it once the fence is up. Luckily he floated this to the Kiwi and she suggested that I will do it later as I don't have time to do it prior to him putting up the fence - my explanation would have been slightly more colorful). He's also notified the local digger operator (soon to be known as Mr. Digger, I'm sure) that the ladies next door will be calling him to dig out the stumps of the trees we cut down over the weekend. Makes me want to dig the damn things out myself. Suffice it to say that the sooner the freaking fence goes up, the better. Then we won't have any business with the guy.

I don't really know where I was going with this, but the fence (and the Kiwi's departure back to Auckland for three weeks) has made me cranky tonight. I've got the Sunday Night Baseball Game on ESPN on in the other room and that's not working for me either. At least now you know the story of the fence.