I'm currently sitting in the late evening sun by a swimming pool in Barcelona - and I must say it makes a nice change.
It's been a fantastic season for me in a lot of ways, but it's also been a very long one, so it's good to be away and just forget about rugby for a while.
I've been on a bus tour to see the sights around the city and also to the top of the massive cathedral. Stretts was telling me the other day that he was never scared of heights until he'd been to the top of it and looked down ... and I can see what he means!
It's great to have a few days away because the past week has been tough after Harlequins' defeat by London Irish in the semi-final last Saturday.
It must be said that Toby Booth's Exiles adapted their gameplan very well to deal with us: and maybe we didn't react to that as well as we could have done during the game. They played pretty tight and competed remarkably well at the breakdown and unfortunately we had a bad day.
But we've had a great season. A Heineken Cup quarter-final and a Guinness Premiership semi-final represents a big step forward for this Quins squad, and we're determined to build on that next year.
But as always, we can't afford to dwell on a defeat for too long. The great thing about sport is that there's always another challenge around the corner.
On Tuesday I'll be back with England and getting ready for the games against the Barbarians and Argentina. I'll be totally focused on that now that I know I won't be on the Lions tour.
I'd had a couple of whispers that I had a great chance to make the tour after the injury to Munster scrum-half Tomas O'Leary - so I was pretty disappointed to hear that Mike Blair was called up as his replacement - meaning that I'd missed out again.
Fair play to Mike, of course - he's a class player and has more experience than I do and I wish him all the best in South Africa. It would have been amazing to be on that tour but it's no use me thinking about it now.
There is test rugby to play before the end of the season and the trip to Argentina should be a really good learning experience for us all.
After that I reckon I'll be able to have about three and a half weeks to just chill out before pre-season starts with Quins. But in the meantime it will be amazing to get a chance to play for England again and work with coach Martin Johnson.
