The county council insist the unmade track leading to my house is nothing to do with them, while the parish council change their position depending on how they feel on the day.

If they want to boss us about, they infer they are leasing the land from Surrey county council, along with the rest of the village green, and therefore we must do what they say when we are using it.

So, for example, they charged us for a weekly permit when we put a skip outside our house while renovating.

At other times, including when the track needs repairing, they infer that it is not really that much to do with them. They chuck the odd bag of gravel into the holes but otherwise let the rainwater build up all winter.

The builder boyfriend digs makeshift trenches to drain the flooded road, and helps old ladies living on their own to bail water away from their doors.

When we contact Surrey county council to point out that the parish council they are leasing the village green to are refusing to maintain a track running through it, Surrey county are sympathetic to us on the phone.

When we tell the parish this, they say that really and truly, Surrey county ought to do more.

I also had a nice letter from the chair of the parish council recently to say that if I didn’t like the track to my house, then I could always stop using it. The tantalising possibility was held out that the parish might resolve the matter for me by confiscating my right to use the track. They said they intended to verify the exact status of this supposed right of way I claimed I had.

So I sent them my copy of a Land Registry statutory declaration of a right of way across the village green to my home going back to the 1970s, lodged with and stamped by Surrey County Council highways. Then I wrote again to Surrey county saying please can you repair the track you own. And this time, they came back with a most emphatic reply.

‘Good morning. Thank you for your email. Unfortunately we would not be able to authorise this as the road in question is a private road and is not maintained by the Surrey Highways department. We do not hold details of private ownership, however you can contact the Land Registry to obtain this information so that you can report the issue directly to the road owner. Please see…’ And they directed me to the Land Registry website.

Crikey, I thought, this track to my house really isn’t owned by the council. Or possibly anybody. And the builder b got excited. ‘If that’s right,’ he said, ‘then you can register it as yours.’

We hatched a plan. If we owned the track, then we could repair it. Perhaps we might even persuade the other dozen households to chip in and we could all buy it together.

I suppose I expected to find out that the strip of land was already owned by one of them, or that the parish had bought it, and were keeping it quiet.

I went online and by hovering my mouse on a map, I ordered the title deeds and plan for the strip of land outside my house for a modest fee. A short while later they were emailed to me.

I clicked to open the documents. The strip of land where we park our cars was clearly registered as inside the boundary of the village green, owned by the same people who owned the green… ‘The County Council of Surrey of County Hall, Kingston upon Thames, KT1 2DN.’ And it had been owned by them since 1968 when it was sold to them by a local aristocrat.

I emailed Surrey county council their own title deed, and got a tart reply saying they would now have to forward this interesting new information to their property department ‘who will respond to you in due course. Please do not hesitate to contact us again if you require further assistance.’

Further assistance? I don’t recall having any assistance so far. The access track to my house is falling to bits, the builder b has broken his foot falling down a pothole getting out of his truck in the dark, and is preparing to spend winter again helping old ladies bail water away from their doors. What assistance is it that the council are referring to?

But that was the beginning of December and I have heard nothing from the property department. Due course turned out to mean no course, of course.

I have informed them that if I don’t hear back from them soon I will commence proceedings to take adverse possession of the land they’re not interested in owning.