It's a parking one! And it's long, apologies.
I live at the end of a cul-de-sac. There are 4 parking spaces and inevitably some cars end up parked alongside some garages nearby (that are empty) as the 4 spots are taken. No drama, no one appears to mind this. My house is the only house that has a dropped curb. The previous owners put this in as they had a work van they kept in the garden (garden backs onto the area where the parking spaces are). The garden is the size of a stamp and half of it is slabs and gravel as the owner before me used it as a second parking space. So you open the double gate at the end of my garden and they open into one of these parking spaces over the dropped curb.
The other houses don't have drives at all and so rely on the 3 out of 4 spots or the less desired spaces alongside the garages (not individually owned, rentable by the council for storage etc, they aren't in use as far as I'm aware).
I don't park in my garden. I could do, but unlike the previous owners I have small children that play in the garden and I don't like having to get out the car and open the gates to park in the garden space. I also don't like that the car then prevents me from closing my gates so people can walk past and see into the garden/back of my house/living room.
So I just park in the space in front of my gates. I've come home today and parked by the garages as had to do a car switch over with my ex who was parked in "my" space with his car. Once he left I got caught up doing tea and when I've gone to move my car there is someone parked in my space. It's a small village and I don't want to be shitty and put a note on their car when my car technically is fine in the spot it is but it's more the principle!
The gates have a sign on them saying that the drive is in use so please don't block them which is very visible. I wonder if I'm annoying neighbours by not parking in my garden but surely it wouldn't make any difference as if I was parked in the garden they'd be unable to use my space anyway as I would need access down the dropped curb to leave!
AIBU by expecting people to not park in my spot or have I wound them up by not utilising my garden space.
I feel like I wouldn't know what to write on a note as technically they are not blocking me in but have just pinched my spot! As a one off I don't mind but I don't want it to happen routinely really as I bought the house mainly for the parking spot after many years of driving around roads in the city praying for a spot to squeeze into.
Diagram attached (hopefully). I have artistic skill of a manatee so sorry in advance.