The Lodge Guys: January 2024 Update

Hands up who else is sick of the weather in the UK 🙋‍♂️

Snow, wind, storms. It’s felt like lockdown again with the time we have been stuck indoors.

Anyway, enough moaning. Welcome to a new update on what’s been going on for us. We, as always hope you are well and having a great month (despite the weather, even our Florida friends have had it bad this month)

We have been busy preparing for our trip to Disneyland Paris. As the weather has been so bad we have decided to pack like we are heading to the north pole. ☃️❄️

Hand warmers, scarves, gloves, thermals. Hopefully, it gets a bit better by the time we go. All these things take up valuable merch and gift space in the suitcase!

Snow

We had a decent amount of snow for a few days so we decided to head further into it and get some wintery walks in.

Unfortunately, something didn’t turn out very well in the Snow, you’ll find out in a vlog soon about that.

But we had a lovely time exploring and searching for some filming locations. (Sneak peek photo below if you can guess the film? 🤔)

We decided to stay a night in a local hotel as we were out exploring and ended up in an outdoor hot tub with snow falling down on us. Vlogs coming soon on all that.

Van Updates

We have been missing Taylor our camper van. We are keen to get on with the build and get on our travels in her. We have been looking at Starlink so we can have wifi along our travels.

With four videos a week to upload plus all our social media, we want to make sure we can upload fast wherever we are.

It’s a pricey bit of hardware with ongoing monthly costs but it’s something we have to get.

If you have any experience with Starlink we would love to hear your thoughts in the comment box below.

It looks like Costco may be a good place to purchase it from as they offer two free months along with the hardware

The cushions have arrived and we are super impressed with them. You will get to see them in a vlog soon.

We took them to a local upholstery shop and they have done a great job. We can’t wait to get back and try them to see what they look like.

Projector

We are still deciding what’s best to have in the van so we can watch TV. We ordered a projector which we initially thought was a great, space-saving idea but the picture was only perfect in the dark with all the curtains and blinds closed.

We will probably watch it during the day also so we decided it wasn’t for us (although we loved the portability of it)

We gave the Echo Show 15 a thought but it may be a little small so we may end up going with a normal small TV. Another thing to decide once we are back at the lodge.

Once we return to the lodge we have some mechanical issues to get fixed (nothing major) some security to add and a few other bits then we are almost ready to get going and test her.

Fluffy Fluffy

As people are aware, we like food 🤣🤷 So we get lots of recommendations from you lovely lot of places to try.

A few people mentioned Fluffy Fluffy in Leeds. Well, we went, and OMG.

The size of this souffle pancake! A vlog coming soon to see what we think of it.

Let us know anywhere else you would like to see us try in the comments below. We love to try unique places like this that are a bit different from the norm.

Fuwa Fuwa, meaning “fluffy fluffy” 

North America’s largest soufflé pancake and dessert cafe.

From breakfast to dinner, and everything in between.

We aim to deliver happiness, one pancake at a time.

From the Fluffy Fluffy website

Mowgli

Speaking of food, if you haven’t tried Mowgli yet, give it a go if you like Indian food. It’s now one of our new favourites and we need to go back and sample lots more of the menu.

We did a short review video of it over on our extras channel which you can watch below

The Carding Shed

Another place that’s been recommended a few times was the carding shed in Holmfirth.

This cafe has a car theme to it and a separate showroom of classic and unusual cars. We had a call in and of course, sampled the tea and a cake. If you are ever in the area it’s worth a trip.

Have you ever wanted to see what really goes into restoring a classic car? After a delicious full English breakfast served in The Carding Shed, join one of our technicians as they take you for a guided tour around the IK Classics workshop. We will take you through the detailed restoration process, with demonstrations of specialist equipment and explanations of the cars currently being worked on.

From the carding shed website

Bakewell

We took a trip to Bakewell to meet some friends. We had to try the local famous Bakewell pudding (which actually came as a tart in the cafe we chose) You can see what we thought about it in the video below. Did we get the wrong thing? Lots of people say it wasn’t the proper pudding but the shop said it was. We may need to go back again 🤔

Upcoming vlogs

Here are some upcoming thumbnails for future videos so you can see some things we have been filming

New Merch

We have some new van-inspired merch on the store, keep an eye on the store for discount and free delivery offers which happen every few weeks

A couple of final bits

See if you can spot us walking through Uppermill in this video below. At around 33:16. We had just met some friends there the other week and were walking back to the car 🤣 (Thank you to the lovely person that messaged us on Insta to show us this 🥰)

January has been a tough month, not just because of the shi*te weather. It’s a year since Nicks’s mum was ill and a lot of memories have been brought up this month.

Gail’s birthday and year anniversary are all around this time. We have spoken about her often and taken flowers for her.

Anniversaries are a difficult time for anyone who has lost someone. It’s a horrible time that almost all of us must live through for someone we have known.

It feels cruel and terrible but also the memories provide comfort. If you are going through something similar at the moment then our thoughts are with you and hopefully, you can find the strength to see yourself through this time.

Thank you for all the comments and messages we have had this month about Gail 💖

If anyone would like to make a donation to Barnsley Hospice who kindly looked after Gail last year their details can be found here 🥰

If you ever need somewhere to go for a chat with some lovely people then head over to our Facebook Group there are lots of people on there who are always up for a natter about things.

A lovely positive place to hang out for a while and have a bit of fun.

We hope you are having a lovely January and keeping warm if you are in the UK

We will see you on the next vlog or blog post

Love from

Leigh & Nick