I think a lot of people are going out of their way to be spiteful and classic Mumsnet bully pile-on purely because of what your partner/ husband said. Also, misguided people think that their precious darling children have the right to do anything they like up to the point of criminal damage and everyone should be expected to roll over and go “oh well it’s just children having fun” which in reality it’s not just that at all. The children aren’t to blame but the adults shouldn’t think it’s acceptable in the first place. If you don’t want someone else’s children drawing on your property with chalk or otherwise, that’s absolutely fine. It’s your property, no one has the right to tell you what should and shouldn’t be happening on a property that they don’t pay a penny to rent/ mortgage for as long as it’s not illegal of course. It’s easy to be so cavalier with something that doesn’t belong to you. Cheeky fuckers on here and your neighbours. Why don’t all of those in the “just chuck a bucket of water over it” camp come and clean your driveway for you as they’re so wonderfully kind and tolerant. Do they want to contribute to your water bill whilst they’re at it? Doubt it. I can’t imagine being the person to chuck a bucket of water of a child’s self-perceived art is going to be considered any less upsetting or inflammatory for them. It comes across as passive aggressive when the right course of action to save broken hearts and tears is for them to stay on their side of the drive in the first place. It’s not due to rain here for about five days and the six weeks holiday is long. I wouldn’t want other people’s children scrawling on my drive with chalk constantly for six weeks and I have children of my own and indeed do like children.
Regardless of whether the driveway is half shared or half owned is also irrelevant because it still doesn’t entitle anybody to treat the other half like it doesn’t belong to you. It’s cheekiness of the highest order and the principle is the thing that counts here, not the fact that it’s child’s play or temporary. If anyone says otherwise they’re devoid of common sense and have just as little respect for people than the gobby parent and in my view. If the neighbour had any wish to maintain neighbourly relations then they would tell their children to stay on their own half of the driveway and supervise them properly. As much as it’s nice that they’re outside instead of inside, it’s still a low bar to allow children to use someone else’s drive purely for the fact that they’re not glued to a screen inside. Can people really not be arsed to parent their children anymore?
Anyway, it speaks more about them than it does you. The virtue-signallers on here literally fall over theirselves to tell you how they “couldn’t possibly imagine getting worked up over this” or it’s “not a hill they would die on”. Of course you couldn’t dear. 🙄 If it had been about them using your pool in your front garden or playing ball the answer would be completely different although a lot of holier than thou people on here would like to claim otherwise. There was a thread recently on here about a little girl who kept going into a posters garden and playing in their garden. It was a resounding YANBU and the child shouldn’t be going into their garden without their permission. Rightly so.
The thing is about Mumsnet it is a lot of the time it’s not reflective of real life and it brings out of a lot of the saddos who get a real kick out of making a stranger on the internet feel like shit. I haven’t once in real life heard anyone use the self-righteous “witty” lines that are so easily trotted out when certain subjects are discussed on here. Of course they wouldn’t, because they’d make theirselves look an absolute idiot and nobody would put up with it. It’s easy to be brave when youre hiding on the internet.
Finally, to add conclusion to my waffle YANBU. 😁 Your husband/ partner was definitely BU though so you might want to be the person to speak to your neighbour in future as I have a feeling by her unreasonable reaction that you could have more issues with her down the line. Good luck and ignore all of the unnecessary mud slinging, it’s just nonsense.