merry christmas

an innocent angel hand delivered to Fruit Towers by Danielle. Thanks Danielle.

Things have been getting a bit quieter round here. Christmas is on the way and people are disappearing, back to Kent and Derbyshire and Scotland and Australia.

But before this blog has a nap in front of a roaring log fire, or gets galloping indigestion (much more likely), we'd just like to wish you a happy Christmas, whatever you're up to. We'll be back in the New Year. Thank you for reading and commenting this year. If there's anything we can do to make the blog better in 2008, just let us know.

PS because we're not going to be around much at Christmas, we're turning the comments moderating thing on. Should stop the blog becoming a spamfest.

das innocent pipimeter

Perhaps my favourite thing of 2007 - a German version of the innocent weeometer. But who is Harald Juhnke?

photos that win prizes

Exciting news. It's time to announce the Big Knit photo (flickr group) competition winners for 2007. We've had some pretty fine entries and choosing the best has been extremely tough. Especially with a whole year's supply of smoothies at stake for the winners. There were different categories - here you go...

1. Most creative use of hat

Think trees, think hats, think Margaret's hatted tree. We think this is great. Like Christmas tree lights (but on a different kind of tree and without the light part).

2. Best hat ensemble

Because it's amazingly cool. And we appreciate the effort and icy fingers that must have gone into it (well done Keira V).

3. Favourite overall hat picture

Awarded to Sandra - for magically creating some little blue hats which look just like the one on our lemon, honey and ginger smoothie label. They look fantastic and we're pretty keen on the camera angle too (love that eerie bird). We hope that the grass was smelling nice on that day.

Congratulations and thanks for everyone who entered their own pictures - they made us smile. We'll be in touch with the winners shortly - so you can let us know where you want us to send your smoothies.

 

you fools

Last week we let people know that we're about to retire an old recipe - blackberries and blueberries is currently spending its last few days on the shelves. In its place will come an even more berry-focused recipe (hard to believe, I know, but true), ready to be unleashed at the start of 2008.

Our loyal family members were given an email address (youfools@innocentdrinks.co.uk) where they could tell us if we were goofing up royally. And some people took the opportunity to let us know, pulling no punches. I would like to say that there was a full and frank exchange of views, but mostly we just hid in the corner whimpering while they said the following:

‘Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!’

‘You fools isn't strong enough!’

‘Ridiculous... absolutely ridiculous. You should all be ashamed of  yourselves.’

‘The war on Iraq; Geri Halliwell's decision to leave the Spice Girls and go solo; Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin singing in Paint Your Wagon; marrying Brigitte Nielsen; Jordan and Peter Andre having their own TV show; innocent's decision to get rid of the Blackberry & Blueberry smoothie. Schoolboy error, I fear.’

We even received a picture of a small baby dressed as a chicken (we think), looking really grumpy at the prospect of the disappearance of the old recipe. This sight upset us more than words can say.

But we'll get over it. As we hope you will too. Obviously, if you're feeling like giving us some grief, that's what the comments are for, but for now, please trust us when we say that the new recipe is a belter and there will be no need for you to dress your infants as chickens to press your point home.

a frosty visitor

We had a visit from Jack earlier this week. As much as he makes it a lot harder to get out of bed in the morning he's a pretty fellow isn't he.

back by popular demand

The problem with making great tasting smoothies is when we stop making great tasting smoothies. Take our lemon, honey & ginger recipe for example. It's an old seasonal favorite of ours that is great for the colder times of the year.

You might remember lemon, honey & ginger was our November smoothie of the month along with last year's seasonal smoothie for winter and sure enough both times when their days came to an end we started to hear from you about how much you missed it. So here it is again, as our winter seasonal smoothie in a big carton this time. It will be around until next spring so go get your fix.

While we're talking of lemon, honey & ginger take a look at San's great shots of last months smoothie of the month wearing the exact same hat Kat scribbled on our bottle and is now being sported by a snowman who can't see where he's going. We just found them in our Big Knit flickr group. Thanks San, they made us smile.

phone box shock

Somebody's using the phone box. To make a call. That's never happened before.

blog eat blog

Last week Adam, one of the founders and chief greenskeeper for method products, came over to Fruit Towers to meet our Sustainability Jess. After going home method blogged about their visit so we thought we'd blog them back. Hello method.

We think method are great - they make non-toxic cleaning products made with natural ingredients. Jess and Adam had lots to talk about - method use 100% recycled plastic for their products, just like our bottles, and do great work on carbon reduction, ethical sourcing of the ingredients for their products, and trying to have a positive impact on the world.

We swapped lots of great ideas, and promised to keep in touch in the future, after all four hands are better than two.

making adverts

We are in the middle of making an advert, which means quite a bit of waiting around in draughty places like this.

There's quite a lot of drinking tea as well.

When making adverts, there's often someone shouting "Cut" and "Action", but this time things were more relaxed and there was none of that shouting business.

We can't tell you much about it at the moment, but it will feature fruit and a man with a really big head, and there will be some very simple animation (as usual). It'll be on telly in the New Year.

guess something, win one tree

We popped over to the opening of the new howies shop on Carnaby street last week to be warmly greeted by Ade with champagne and smoothies.

It's their first ever shop so they celebrated in style (note the matching t-shirt and champagne labels) albeit a couple of months after they first opened.

I left with 2 of the 500 trees they gave out to mark the occasion and to help bring a bit of the countryside to us city folk.

One of them is now happy in my back garden but the other is looking for a good home to 'grow slow and grow strong'. If you fancy winning a special edition Silver Birch, a nice little 'Cardigan Bay to Carnaby Street' booklet, any guys or girls T-Shirt you like from the current howies collection and few smoothies, just answer the below question as a comment to this post:

How many trees will our treeometer be showing at the close of Buy One Get One Tree at midnight on Monday 10th December?

Leave your guess by midnight on Friday 7th December - all comments left after this will be invalid as it will be too close to be a fair guess. One guess each. No cheating.

Good luck.