I’m sure it’ll be a surprise to hear but you couldn’t escape talk of the General Election. The core of the squad are English, but we have plenty of representatives from north of the border, the odd Welshman and a few Irishmen to stir the pot, so there were plenty of amusing conversations and lively debates on who should lead our county. Much to Tom Guest’s disappointment, I didn’t vote for Plaid Cymru, but it’s clear to see that Leanne Wood certainly made a big impact as he won’t stop doing impersonations of her every time I see him.

With the election over, changing room talk has returned to the usual subjects of Jebb Sinclair’s bemusing dress sense and Conor Gilsenan’s search for a girlfriend.

On the April 26 the annual London Irish Minis festival was held for the first time at the new Hazelwood training complex. The new facility enabled the organisers to expand the tournament and allow 32 teams to enter, with visitors from as far afield as France, Germany and Holland.

Half the squad were on hand to motivate, coach, sign autographs and even receive the odd tip from kids aged between 7-10 years of age.

This was my first experience of the festival and I couldn’t believe the sheer size of the event; all the pitches were put to use and more than 2,300 children participated.

Geoff Cross achieved his goal of raising over £10,000 for the Wooden Spoon charity. Over a year’s worth of growth culminated in one of the most famous beards in world rugby being shaved off live on Sky Sports.

Leo Halavatau was trusted with revealing to us all just what exactly was lying beneath all the hair and to everyone’s surprise it was a great jaw line!

This Saturday sees the last fixture of the season as we host an in-form Wasps at the Madejski Stadium. Having won three out of our last four Premiership home games we’ll be looking to bounce back from our defeat at Kingsholm last weekend and sign the season off with a win.

A long pre-season awaits with the delay of the 2015/16 Premiership season due to the World Cup, so if the thought of waiting almost five months to see us play at the Madesjki sounds too much to bear, get down this Saturday for what promises to be an entertaining game.