The management very kindly gave us Monday and Tuesday off to recharge ourselves before the weekend fixture at home to Esher. This break allowed my wife Gemma and I to consider what we could do with the days off.  Do we nip home, get some cheap flights and have a couple of days in the sun or drive to somewhere picturesque and do some sightseeing around England?

There was so much choice and variety that we ended up getting up early on Monday morning and giving the house a serious clean from top to bottom! I still do not know how that happened. It is a good thing I suppose; Gemma's twin sister Mimi and her fiancee Aleric are coming over from Belfast to stay with us for the weekend so they will have a spotless room (those are real names, I promise). Since we moved over from Northern Ireland we have been lucky with plenty of people coming to visit us which is great so they can see our life over here and see how much we are enjoying ourselves in Northampton. 

After our impression of Kim and Aggie, the adventurous day continued with a trip to Sainsbury's and ended being spent on the couch watching some mindless rubbish I had recorded on Sky+ like 'Family Guy' or a documentary on sharks. This lasted until Gemma needed her fix of 'Murder She Wrote' and the Channel 5 afternoon matinee, some nonsense about a cake decoration tournament, hardly an epic, so thankfully I slept through it.

On Tuesday, we were feeling a bit more Indiana Jones so we decided we would go to London for the day. After getting the train to Euston, we boarded the tube and headed for Oxford Street for a bit of retail therapy. I have not really ever been to London and perhaps I am only a naive fella from wee 'Norn Iron', but the place is bonkers. It is so big with such a variety of different people, really quite amazing. I am pretty sure I could walk around with my trousers around my ankles and nobody would bat an eyelid! Anyway, we ended up in Topshop and saw Leona, the girl who won the 'X Factor' last year, sifting through the bargain rail. At this point I tried to explain to Gemma that if it was good enough for her...

We met some friends for lunch and as we wandered to meet them in Moorgate a certain scrum-half stuck his head out the window of a black cab and shouted "Oi! What are you doing here?" Thank you Sharky for taking a few years off my life! After lunch, we spent the afternoon in Harrods. My Auntie had very generously given us some vouchers for there as a wedding present. That place has everything, and despite my insistence that the money should be spent on a selection of treats from the foodhall Gemma insisted they could be better used on other things. Maybe next time.

Preparation for the Esher game had gone very well and the match showed we are developing as a team and we scored some great tries. Mimi and Aleric had a great time at the game and are still raving about the Franklin's Gardens experience. They had been joind by friends of ours, Grace and James, who decided to come up from London and stay with us for the weekend. It was his first live rugby match and I think he has been converted. I did not mean that when I wrote this originally but what an awful pun! 

I joined them after the game and we stayed at the club and watched the World Cup Final with the rest of the squad and their friends and family. We ordered some pizzas and myself and Johnny Howard went to pick them up from the delivery guy and were delighted to see that he drove a yellow Robin Reliant. Thanks Del Boy! We gave him a big tip so that he could buy an extra wheel for his car. The atmosphere was great and everyone was very friendly to our guests and Digger was chatting away to Mimi asking how the house was and how her work was going. It was only when I came over and introduced him to Gemma's twin that he realised he was talking to the wrong sister, his face was a picture but he handled himself very well.

There was plenty of English pride and support in the room whereas Euan, Toops, Damo, Jimmy and myself were a bit less enthusiastic. James, the guy staying with us, was born in South Africa and vowed to streak if they won. Thankfully he did not, or at least I thought he didn't until we got home and he walked naked through our kitchen to get a beer from the fridge.

Sunday morning - ugh!