Hello. Everything we do at the moment is pretty much fete focused. Fete for breakfast, fete for lunch and some pan seared fete for tea, with mustard mash and broccoli. So please don’t be surprised if we mention our big village fete in Regent's Park somewhere below.

We'd like to look after you

Look, let's get the fete bit out of the way first. We'd like to invite ten lucky people (and a friend/lover/date/mate) to our fete, where we will wine, dine and spoil them all day long, and maybe even provide them with a personal butler (we are still working on this). All you have to do is answer a really easy question by clicking here (this link was only available to family members). In other fete news, we just signed up a nice man called James Carrington to come and play his music. There's also a special famous surprise musical guest, whose name we're not allowed to tell you, for some sort of weird contractual reason. Suffice to say, he's good.

Non-butlered tickets are still available here, just in case you want to hedge your bets.

Stuff yourself like a turkey

Did we mention we're having a fete? Actually, we're just writing up the final programme. The food and drink bit is getting us particularly excited – we've persuaded traders from Borough Market to come and lay on some grub for us (the first time they've done such a thing), as well as people from Shish, Aspall  (they're bringing a cyder barn), The Portobello Pie Company, Hendricks, Belsize Park Village Café, The Well Hung Meat Company, Melrose and Morgan, Hummus Bros and a load more. You will not go hungry.

Don't go over the edges

Great colouring in ain't easy. You've got to choose the right felt tips, stay inside the lines and make sure that the sky is blue and the grass is green. Very easy to get it wrong. Very easy. We know this all too well, as we recently held a great big kids colouring in competition. From over 700 entries we chose 6 finalists, and now we need your help – you get to choose the winner. I know – it sounds tough, but even little ones have got to learn – life's a competition, and most of us lose. But for life's winners, success and riches await, which in this case means that the victor gets a years supply of smoothies and a visit on their birthday from our Dancing Grass Van, while the 5 runners up will each get a month's supply of smoothies. Click here (this link was only available to family members) to see the final six and cast your vote. Make it count, for the children.

Man wins toiletries

Here's another one of life's winners – Ben from Maidenhead. Ben won all of the Origins stuff in last week's news, which he will no doubt use to make his face all glowing and refreshed, like a baby's backside. Ben – we hope you enjoy your new skin products, and we hope that the floods didn't get you too bad. (If anyone's interested in how we pick winners from the thousands of entries we get, you may be interested to know that we use Dr Michael Daniels' Random Number Generator)

And finally...

Hello. It’s time for news. News of radio. News of beer. News of trees and tetris and chickens. You will hopefully enjoy it.

Buy one, get one tree

So here’s something interesting. We’re doing something with Starbucks at the moment that means you’ll see little tags on our bottles in their stores. On each tag are instructions that tell you how to register for a tree to be planted – we sort out the tree planting bit, so all you have to do is register. Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to plant trees. They provide homes for woodpeckers. They protect you from hailstones. And there are some more smart facts about why we’re doing it right here. PS Make sure you check the tree-o-meter here.

Better fete than never

Don’t worry. Our fete is only three weeks away, so we’ll stop doing fete puns pretty soon. But this week we have some good fete news to share. Not only will we have excellent music, great comedy, hot dance moves, posh grub/booze and some ferret racing, but we’ve also got some radio people broadcasting live from the fete. Capital 95.8 will have their radio tent on the site and will be broadcasting the best bits of our fete live on the radio (we’re hoping that this will include live commentary of the ferret racing). They’re also giving away posh VIP packages on the radio in the run up to the weekend – to win, you need to listen to 95.8FM or online, because that’s where Capital are.

Buy fete tickets here – don’t wait til they’ve sold out, because then you won’t be able to go.

A report from Munich

Teresa just started working for us in Munich. She’s kind of down there by herself at the moment, so we thought we’d get some news from her to see how it’s going. This is what she told us about Munich:

"What can I say about Munich? Well, they call it the northernmost city in Italy. We’ve got the "English Garden", which is one of the largest city parks in the world. And we also have the Oktoberfest – the world’s biggest beer festival, which attracts 6.5 million visitors to the city. Each year 61M litres of beer are served and 480,000 chickens get eaten. Burp. At the moment our smoothies are stocked in San Francisco Coffee Company stores in and around Munich, and in Starbucks too. Please say hello to them if you’re passing."

Buff yourself right up

Origins make nice stuff for your body. We asked them to come to the fete so that they could make all of us look beautiful, buffed and unshiny of nose. And they kindly offered us a big basket of their best stuff (worth a staggering £238, no less) for you to win while you’re waiting for the fete to arrive. To win the stuff, click here and answer the insultingly easy question.

PS Last week’s competition to win a load of drinks was won by Lesley S, Alex S, Victoria H, Jenny S, Jane V, Alison O, Karl F, Richard C, Leanne P, and Ben T.

And finally...

Hello everyone. Please read this week’s news if you’d like to win a case of our new smoothie of the month or wish to see Joey Chestnut eat hot dogs. We also feature Michael Jackson and some ferrets too, so let’s get cracking.

A new dawn, sort of

A glistening new smoothie of the month beckons. Look at it, beckoning. It’s practically saying “I like you. Come over here and drink me.” This time it’s oranges, mandarins and raspberries giving you that ‘come hither’ look – a lighter recipe than usual, as we were sort of expecting it to be summery and warm outside. Admittedly, there is a chink of sunshine squeezing through the clouds today, so we hope that this gluggable little number heralds a new dawn, a brighter future, a summer that doesn’t get stuck in an anticyclone somewhere over the Azores. Enjoy knocking it back, and try answering this stupid question (link only available to innocent family members) to win a few cases of it..

Dynamic fete entertainment

Our fete is less than four weeks away and things round here are getting hectic, like ferrets at a disco. We’ve added a couple of noted people to the line up – Andy Votel and Patrick Forge to be precise (listen to Patrick here by clicking ‘stream real audio’ ) . As a result of all this new stuff, we’re selling tickets quicker than Tyson Gay, so don’t forget to bag yours sharpish.

And we’re still visiting other people’s fetes – we spent last weekend up in Ainsdale at their do. There was much fun to be had, including a set from Simon Jay, the "Dynamic Vocal Entertainer". Have a look at more pictures here.

More newness

Not only do we have a new smoothie of the month in our locker, but there’s also a brand new big one about to hit the shelves. We’ve put our latest superfoods recipe – pink guavas, mangoes and goji berries – into our one litre cartons. And because we thought hard when choosing the ingredients, it’s the recipe that provides slooooooooow release energy, which means that you should have enough stamina to keep up with the aforementioned breakdancing ferrets, obviously.

And finally...

Holy moley it’s July. Where does the time go? How come it’s still raining? Why am I suddenly so aware of the feeling of my feet in my shoes? Mysterious questions, the answers to none of which lie within this week’s news.

A big announcement

Parp pa pa pa parp paaaarp. And with that stately fanfare we are proud to announce the line-up for the music at our village fete (Regent’s Park, London, Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th August). If you click here you can read a brief intro and listen to songs by some of the artists. More to come...

As well as all that music, the fete will have a big farmer’s market, loads of stuff for kids to do, real ale and cider, monkey tennis*, miles of bunting, and even the odd smoothie. Tickets are still available here.

A big honour

On Monday night we headed to the Business In the Community Awards. We were very pleased indeed to win the National Example of Excellence award for last year’s Big Knit campaign (aka Supergran). The award is presented to the company who has “best raised awareness of key social issues, mobilised consumers behind causes and supported charities for mutual benefit". Prince Charles and Al Gore presented the award. Our Emma was glowing like an energy-saving light bulb after Mr Gore complimented her on her dress. Prince Charles didn’t comment but was apparently looking rather attentively at her shoes*.

A huge thank you to all of you who knitted hats. This year’s campaign will be kicking off soon, so watch this space.

A big weekend

We’ve now got details of over 150 fetes in our fete finder so if you’re stuck for something to do this weekend, here are some of the upcoming highlights should you fancy popping along. To get you in the mood we recommend listening to Black Dog by The Epstein while perusing this list (The Epstein will be playing live at our big fete).

Saturday 7th July
Compton Dando Village Fete, Somerset
St Johns Summer Church Fete, London
Wakeling fete, Totteridge
York Road School Fun Day, Dartford
Hollowell Steam & Heavy Horse Show, Nr Northampton
CHICKS Summer Fayre, Tavistock, Devon
St Mary's Village Carnival, Dunstable
Martham Fun Carnival, Great Yarmouth

Sunday 8th July
Manorlands Garden Party, Oxenhope
St Andrews North Kilworth Primary School Fun Day, North Kilworth
Shotley School Summer Fayre, Ipswich
Greatrex village fete, Charvil

We didn’t have enough space to include all the fetes happening this weekend - this is just a selection. There are loads more on our site, so have a look here if you want to search for one near you, or add your own fete. We're going to the Ainsdale Show near Southport. If you fancy a laugh, our Matt will be there, selling smoothies and wearing his trousers.

And finally...

*Not really.