FLAGSHIP DIAMOND WOOD

To celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Woodland Trust is helping millions of people across the UK come together and plant six million trees. With HRH The Princess Royal as Patron, the Jubilee Woods project aims to create hundreds of Jubilee Woods and 60 special Diamond Woods, transforming the landscape in a generation and providing a lasting and meaningful tribute for many years to come. This includes the Trust’s exciting new flagship Diamond Wood in the heart of the National Forest in Leicestershire, which will be a haven for wildlife and open for all to enjoy.

After all the bunting has gone, the trees planted for the Jubilee will leave a lasting legacy that will leave a lasting legacy that will transform neighbourhoods, school playing fields, hospital grounds, rural and urban areas – creating homes for wildlife and areas for people to relax, explore and enjoy.

A delegation of seven from Leicester Council of Faiths is attending the event at the National Forest today, at which HRH The Princess Royal is guest of honour. There they are outside Pilgrim House, about to board a minibus and head off (left to right: Ajay Aggarwal, Gursharan Kaur Thandi, Cllr Manjula Sood, Tony Nelson, Sewa Singh, Inderjit Singh Gugnani, Keyhar Singh). They're all well enough turned out to meet a royal personage; I'm not sure how they'll get fare if they're asked to wield a spade or push a wheelbarrow today! Still, to coin a phrase, "Any sleeve can be rolled up." I just made up that ancient Chinese proverb, but I think it's “Pretty good; pretty, pretty good.”

I'm not going on this trip today. I have an hour's worth of Stronger Communities Partnership Self Assessment Sub-Group at the City Council this morning. I just wanted to make sure I got this photo for the blog. But seeing me here this early, one of my colleagues asks if I slept in the Welcome Centre, adding that he wouldn't be surprised. Perish the thought! I'm clearly overdoing it - and I should take heed of that, today of all days, being my fifth anniversary in post.