Lord IP (name redacted to prevent possible chaos amongst the disciples)  had decided to leave on the fifth Monday of June; a  strange time to leave considering his fondness for the Thursday cake and tea, but fair enough as he’d arranged to meet up for a  talk and sit session with 3 men, one of whom has realised he’s having to stay here for much longer than he’d like to, the other 3 secretly loving the fact that the angriest here man will be here long after they are sunning them selves on the Costa del Awre on the sludgy banks of the sludgy sludgy Severn and the Tenbury Split, a place where 3 counties join and 3 men from those 3 counties retire.

But the fifth Monday, the day when retiring experienced surveyors are traditionally permanently fixed as Ground Control points; a brass rivet in a kerb, their good eye forever gazing up to the heavens, their body mummified in their tap measure; might be an occasion to use a 30m one. On the fifth Monday of the month, we hold our Popeye aloft and bathe in the sweet prism of shots of light, soothed by the sweet hum of the Dell overheating due to the sweet disaster that is sweet.

As my Popeye gently weeps.

As Lord IP rummages in the boot of his car in the Leica box amongst the dust, the pencils , the golf tees and lego men, he finds and holds aloft a AAAA battery and says aloud 

“Never will I ever find an appliance which will use this battery, damn you Dell pen, damn you Compucentre, may your children be born blind and bump into things”

At that point the rest of the group appeared and handed Lord IP some cake and Diet Coke and all was well in the world.

We will miss you Lord P, King of Hugs, Ambassador of Sensible things past. Don’t be a stranger, set up a lamppost survey company and rekindle the youngsters fondness for benchmark hunts (the precursor to easter egg hunts, it’s what Jesus or Vanessa would have wanted) 

And with that Lord IP disappeared in a cloud of Hi Viz and steel toe caps and flew off into the sunset trapped in some Harris Fencing forever floating over building sites like the people in Superman trapped in that window pane.

Love you mate.