Hello.

This week’s news is being written whilst looking out of a window. Sometimes it gets written in someone’s kitchen, sometimes with a pen, sometimes whilst looking out of a window. Today is a window day.

Eat veg, feel strong

Have you had one of our new veg pots yet? Really? That good? Why, thank you. We think they’re pretty useful too, especially if you require more vegetables in your life. For the uninitiated, they contain 3 portions of veg per pot, and are a right tidy meal in themselves, or perhaps on the side of your plate with a bit of chicken/fish/Scotch egg. Our Clare (we call her Veg Pot Clare, to avoid confusion with other Clares) has this to add:

So if you’re looking to defeat the Visigoths whilst ensuring that you get enough fibre, you know what to eat. And if you’d like to win some more veg pots, there’s a chance to a bit further down...

A story about a prize

We won a prize. Sadly not for best handwriting or even looking out of windows, though we'd be in for a shoo in for the latter. No, this prize was the Barclays Green Leaders in Business Award. Our Jess collected the gong from a man called Marcus, and you can read more about it here, including the fact that the trophy itself looks like an executive cheese plate. Tasty.

Fete flickr winner

We like winners round here. They tend to have more prize money than losers, which means that they can buy lavish gifts for their life partners - diamonds, fine wines, executive cheese plates - that sort of thing. In the spirit of winning, we’d like to announce the winners of our Best Fete Photos award. And those winners are..........SJNewton, CJSteele and Mondoagogo (these are their special flickr names and perhaps not their real names, although there was once a man called Junior Agogo who played for Nottingham Forest, so who knows?).

Win some veg pots

This is one of those special times when you really don’t have to do much to win something. Just click the link, answer a question and then wait to see if you’ve won. Clue: the answer isn’t carrot.

And finally...

Hello. Here is the news. It contains wool, tax and poisonous fungi. Consume with caution and if you feel any side effects, rinse your mouth out with warm soapy water for that just washed feeling. Mmm.

Find your food

There’s been a lot of foraging round these parts recently. Ted did a bit of urban foraging and found some mushrooms. Ceri and Meera did some foraging in Wales with a man called Yun who forages for the Queen. And a while back, Lucy and her gang went foraging with the Wild Man himself, Fergus Drennan. If you’re thinking of going foraging soon, autumn is apparently the best time for it. All of the nuts and berries are in full swing, and fungi are partying like it’s 1999. But all of the experts agree on one thing – don’t eat anything unless you are 100% sure what it is, and watch out for the fabled black squirrel. He’ll play with your mind.

Warm and practical

You like knitting right? And you like resource packs? Of course you do. Everyone loves resource packs. They’re just so useful, what with their resources and everything. Anyway, all of this flim-flam is leading you to the fact that we now have Big Knit resource packs for you to download. According to Meera, who is the boss of the The Big Knit, the resource pack contains posters, a hatometer, invitations and knitting patterns, all to help you organise your own knit-in and knit a whole bunch of hats. Yahoo. And in other knitting news, this week’s hat of the week is “the Rolls Royce of small knitted hats” (says Meera). Click here to have a look at it – more hoodie than hat.

VAT and that

As you know, we think most people would benefit from a bit more fruit and veg in their diet, and we reckon that the government could help a bit by reducing VAT on healthy stuff like juices and smoothies (they currently take in excess of £200M every year from charging VAT on these). In the last year over 20,000 of you signed our petition and since then we’ve been talking to the government and lots of other people, including Asda who last week decided to roll back the VAT on all smoothies and fruit juices, which was good of them. Their “VAT’s Not Fair” (geddit?) campaign kicked off last week and will run until 29th September. Good for them.

You, the people, will decide

Our village fete is a memory that flickers in the distance of a long forgotten yesteryear. Actually, it happened about six weeks ago, but we like a bit of melodrama, especially when it heralds the vote for the best fete photo from the flickr photo pool. We’ve drawn up a shortlist and we’d like you to vote on your favourite photos in three categories – best picture of bunting, best fete game picture, and best overall photo. Click here to vote and do your bit for fetekind.

And finally...

This week, we have news. Big news. Really big news. Really big vegetable shaped news. Really big vegetable shaped big news in fact. Really. Read on.

Pots of goodness

Please say a big hello to our brand new innocent veg pots. They’re quick, healthy meals, packed full of vegetables, grains and pulses, in a rather handy pot. It’s not a complicated tale. We’ve been making smoothies for 9 years now and have come to know fruit very well. But we also know that people need veg in their lives too. So we had a think about how to help you do this and came up with veg pots. Each meal provides 3 portions of veg, is low in fat, high in fibre and big on taste. According to Dr. Shilpee, just by combining one with an innocent smoothie, you’ll get your 5-a-day as well. Pretty impressive stuff, eh? They’re available in Waitrose now and in other shops from October. Pots away indeed.

Veg art

Vegetables are Nature’s way of making the greengrocer smile, stew more exciting and the allotment worth digging. So we’d like to celebrate the glory of veg in all their soil covered finery by putting them in pride of place in our very own veg art gallery. Sort of like the Tony Hart gallery of the veg world but where your picture will definitely be put up. We’d love you to post your photos of your vegetable creations here on flickr for all to admire. The extra special ones might even end up on one of our pots. Click here for a bit of veg inspiration and here for some creative inspiration.

Gimme some veg

Loafers with leggings? Chips with cheese? What should I have for my tea tonight? We like to hear what you think about stuff. So if you fancy trying one of our veg pots for free and telling us what you think, then just fill in your details here and we’ll pick 100 lucky folk at random to have a veg pot on us. You can have a look at what other people have had to say here.

Late British summer in a bottle

Despite all this talk of veg, we still make smoothies and this week’s contractually obligatory mention is a goodie. Our new smoothie of the month - blackcurrants and gooseberries – is as evocative of late British summertime as clear evenings, long walks over country stiles, jam-making parties and the odd kip in a hedge. It’s also the time of year for incessant rain, slippery mulched death trap leaves and windy grit in your eyes. So we’ve made this recipe to keep you happy incase the latter stuff happens. Though we sincerely hope it stays good. Leaf inflicted falls are just embarrassing.

A very well done to Natalia Fludra who won The Great Taste Race at our fete this summer. A year’s supply of smoothies on their way to you now.

And finally finally...

Summer's slipped by quicker than a cat burglar in non stick lycra and it's September already. Better don that gold lamé outfit and get down the park for some rollerskating before it gets too nippy.

Badly Drawn Boy, Nicely Drawn Hat

As the founder of the Madchester Music Club, our Vic has managed to enlist the design skills of Damon Gough a.k.a Badly Drawn Boy to help in our Big Knit campaign this year. Being as he's such a hat aficionado, we're looking forward to a crocheted corker from the man who put the ‘b' back in beanies, Bolton and er, boy.

Easy Riders

Whilst driving the grassy van through the streets of Gothenburg recently, our Daniel was pursued by a long haired chap on a motorbike, who then pulled over and started taking photos of the van. Turns out that Micke (far right, beard, sunglasses) is president of the recently formed Innocent Motor Cycle Club in Gothenburg, who meet up regularly to cruise the streets in the latest in leather leisurewear. Back in the office though, no one believed that Daniel had really met a biker gang called Innocent. And over at Innocent MC HQ, no one believed Micke that there was a smoothie of the same name either. So here's proof that both do in fact exist. Leather and fruit together at last. You read it here first, people.

The Great Paper Caper

Not the latest in origami hijinks but a brilliant new children's book by Oliver Jeffers. Not only is it packed full of mysterious disappearing trees, mischief and paper planes, it's also printed on FSC paper for sustainable reading, meaning you can read about looking after trees whilst doing just that. The nice people at Waterstones are offering 10% off The Great Paper Caper and four other Oliver Jeffers books for the whole of September to members of our innocent family (that's you). All you need to do is click here and enter the special code ID3758 at the checkout. We've also got 5 signed copies to give away right here. Happy paper capering.

And finally...