It's Valentine's Day tomorrow. And if you haven't already made plans for the one you love/lust/like, there's still time to pull something special out the bag. Here are a few ideas to get the romance section of your brain fired up:
1. Make a personalised smoothie label.
Just click here to unleash your inner Casanova and pen your declarations of love (or pinch one of the ones we've already written). Then, print it out and stick it onto a smoothie bottle, hand it over and wait patiently for them to succumb to your charms.
2.Make a 3D chalk creation that your loved one will see on their way to work.
Something love inspired would be nice. You'd better get started now.
3. Write them a hug note on a post-it.
4. Have a carpet picnic complete with Malteser tiffin and homemade tortilla chips and salsa dip.
5. Send an e-card of a loved up pair of animals via Friends of the Earth. Another environmentally friendly option is to reuse a card from a previous year.
7. Make a mix CD.
Vickers got this for her birthday and we're all pretty jealous. It's got the 32 songs that have been number one on her birthday each year.
8. Embrace your inner cynic, hop on board the "Valentine's Day was invented by the card companies" bus and let it pass unnoticed. If your beloved complains, question why you loving them every other day of the year isn't enough.
Today is our juice carafe's first birthday. To celebrate we sang happy birthday, we played pass the parcel and Dave F's wife made this rather lovely orange sponge cake. Being an inanimate object our carafe wasn't able to enjoy the cake, so we did the decent thing and helped it out. It was delicious.
You may also remember that last week we set you the challenge of writing an ode to our juice carafe. We had some cracking entries but there could only be 3 winners, so a big well done to Lydia, Paulme and Becky whose tales of hullabaloo, marching bands and vodka made us smile a lot.
Its our juice carafe's first birthday,
We are planning to have a great laugh,
All our staff will be singing hip hip hip hooray,
For the success of our posh jug, the carafe.
The apples and oranges, all of our fruits,
The staff, and Richard Reed too,
Are going to strip down to their birthday suits,
And cause quite a hullabaloo.
It's our juice carafe's first birthday
A Juice of high repute
Twelve months of loving labour
Devoted to the fruit
The finest natural product
From Innocent to you
Add a drop of Vodka
And make it naughty too
It's our juice carafe's first birthday,
Bring on the marching band,
Bursting with fruit and here to stay,
They're the zest-iest in the land.
So let's dance for joy and celebrate,
Gather round all your friends,
'Cos they're never made from concentrate,
And there's even some exciting new blends.
Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to Lydia, Paulme and Becky. A case of our juice will be on its way to you shortly.
Ryan sent us an email earlier this week. We like it. A lot. Ryan is a man that knows what he likes.
"im ryan im 5 and i lik yor jooce lodsi luv bananana strorberie and greapesi asked mumee to buy me mor cos i luv them so mutchi just wantd to sey fankyou for macking nise drinks for meeeeeeei dru you a pikture of me and my drink
fankyooooooooou
ryan"
Here is Ryan's picture.
We asked if Ryan would mind us posting his email and picture on our blog and, according to his mum, he was over the moon. 'The world needs to see my beautiful picture,' he said.
Our lovely juice carafe's first birthday is coming up, and to celebrate we'd like to dedicate a nice poem to it.
Not being great poets ourselves (see below if you need further proof), we'd love you to have a go at coming up with a fitting tribute. It needs to start with the line "It’s our juice carafe’s first birthday", and it should follow the rhyming pattern ABABCDCD, so you might want to avoid sticking an orange at the end of a line. A little bit like the one below, but much, much better:
It’s our juice carafe’s first birthday,
And we’re planning a bit of a do,
We’ll probably play some reggae,
And dance a little bit too.
Someone will bake a big cake,
Hopefully with jam and cream,
Then we’ll all be too stuffed to stay awake,
So we’ll fall asleep and dream.
Leave your poem as a comment to this post and the 3 we like most will each win a case of our finest juice. We'll be picking the winners on Thursday February 2nd so get your entries in by the end of the day on Wednesday.
This competition is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to Lydia, Paulme and Becky. A case of our juice will be on its way to you shortly.
This poster (currently gracing the back of our big cartons and little bottles) has caused something of a stir in the hosiery community.
We've received an awful lot of calls from sockless folk across the land, claiming this sock as their own and asking if they can please have it back.
It's alarming just how many socks go missing (without the intervention of hungry washing machines or excited dogs) and Sally, Janel, Joe M, Jojo, Rio and Lucy F have been amazing at dealing so wonderfully with these concerned callers.
In order to clear up the mystery and put an end to the pain and cold feet of all involved, if this is indeed your sock and you're aching to reunite the pair, just post us its sad, lonely partner and we'll return them both back to you in a velvet lined box atop a crate of smoothies.
With Halloween just around the corner, we're calling on kids across the land to delve into the darkest hollows of their imaginations (and vegetable drawers) to create their very own fruit and veg monster.
The first 1,000 spooky creations we receive will win a special set of limited edition Halloween number magnets (0-9) all of which glow-in-the-dark (and look spookily good next to our alphabet ones, which are in our kids smoothies right now)
Fancy getting involved?
Here's how to play
1. Cut, carve and create your fruity freak or vegetable monster from the weirdest looking fruit and veg you can find. Artichoke arms, broccoli bodies, celery claws - anything goes. Just make sure you get a grownup to help you with any sharp knives.
2. Give it a ghoulish name, spelling it out with your innocent magnets
3. The post a picture of your scary monster in our Flickr gallery. The first 1000 entries will win a special spooky set of limited edition glow-in-the-dark number magnets
4. And don't forget to clear up the mess - or the ghosts won't be pleased. Why not use the leftover fruit to make a smoothie or whip up the veg bits into a tasty soup?
Find out about our Fruity Freaks competition right here
Leanne is my granny (and a big fan of our drinks). I’m currently living with her while I buy a flat
I’m sure she could teach us a thing or two about living a long and happy life, so I thought I’d share a few things that I've learnt from Granny Leanne:
1) Work hard
Leanne heads off to work every day as a full-time medical secretary (at the age of 78)
2) Play hard
Leanne loves to socialise. She’s an excellent hostess and always offers you ‘the other half’ of your drink, regardless of how many previous ‘halves’ you’ve had
3) Eat well
Leanne doesn’t like to cook. Instead, she cooks her food how M&S tell her to cook it on the packet
Now, that’s not just cooking… that’s Marks & Spencer cooking
4) Keep fit
Leanne’s not a big fan of exercise. Every time she feels like exercising, she lies down until the feeling goes away (thank you to Robert M. Hutchins for that quote)
5) Drink well
Leanne is a big fan of our little drinks. She likes to take an innocent smoothie in her lunchbox to work every day – and she always enjoys reading the label(s)
And, as the proof is in the pudding, here's a photo of her lunch:
In true granny-style, she has a rubbish picture that I did when I was a child on the wall in the downstairs loo
Framed, of course. Here it is:
I’ll be moving out shortly into my new home
Granny Leanne asked me whether I could simply buy the flat, but keep living with her
Truth be told, I’d love too
Ever since we published our family recipe book Hungry? back in May, lots of people have been asking us if we're going to do a book tour.
Because, after all, every good book deserves a good book tour
Especially a grass covered one
So that's exactly what we're going to do
From 9th-24th September, the Hungry Grassy Van (HGV) will be hitting the road to take tasty, healthy food to the nation.
Using recipes from Hungry?, we'll be serving breakfast, lunch and dinner in all the places we visit.
Dishes will cost between £2 or £3 or you can tick off your 5-a-day for just £5 with our special meal deal
The tour kicks off in London before heading on to Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow and then back to London again
And you can win the chance for the HGV to come along and visit your event
If you live in one of the places above and are having a school fayre, cricket match, jumble sale or a late summer BBQ for your street around those dates, the HGV could be serving up veggie burgers and rainbow chips for all your guests
THE COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED.
To enter, all you need to do is tell us why you the HGV should visit your event in 100 words
You have until the 29th August to enter and we'll pick a winner for each city we visit
We'll let you know more details about the HGV tour closer to the time
For now though, you can find out a bit more by clicking here
Dry cleaning, picking the cat up from the vet, eating your 5-a-day - all things we know we need to do but more than often forget.
Thankfully, the excellent folk at howies are putting an end to all that. Or at least one of them.
Their T-shirt of the Month competition this month is to pen some words to remind you to eat your 5-a-day (or at least some green stuff as well as the beige).
The favourite 5 entries will be put to the people on Facebook, with the most 'liked' entries designed into a T-shirt of the Month for all and sundry to buy.
The lucky winner will also receive a copy of our new family recipe book Hungry? and 5 tasty howies t-shirts with their design on.
To enter and help thousands remember to eat their reds, greens and yellows, just click here
One of our drinkers, Ellen, made him from nothing more than an old smoothie carton, lashings of paint and a big helping of imagination. We like him very much.
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