This last weekend Jill and the gang (Claire, photographer and Trish, stylist/make-up) came up to Northampton to do a photo shoot with me. I have lots of photos taken, but they normally belong to other organisations and photographers, so we thought it would be a good idea to do our own, a bit like we did for the 2008 Calendar..

It was SO windy. I thought the roof was going to come off the barn at one stage. We had trees blow down along our drive way and a gate must have blown open somewhere because all of a sudden Abby came runing in to say that there were sheep running all over the vegetable patch.

Rollo and I sprung into action and between us we expertly herded about 20 sheep back up the drive and into the field. They were not our sheep, I hasten to add. We only have four.

The shoot went really well. It took in total about four hours. It is actually quite tiring. We had some laughs though and the girls left about tea time ready to start putting things into action. In a few days time you will start to see the fruits of our labour. Some of the photos will be exclusive to the Ben Cohen Collection coffe table book which has now gone to print. It will be a limited edition and you can choose to have the signed version. Jill will send them up to me to sign so it may take a few weeks. I hope you like the results. 

On Friday night we played against London Irish at home and disappointingly we lost by 3 points. At least we came away with a bonus point. I am working hard to settle in with the team, but it takes time. Getting that first try under my belt will be a great feeling. The next match is against Toulouse in the Heineken Cup. It's away in France next Sunday.

  Me with Trish (left) and Jill - mid shoot.