Family give up two businesses to live ‘off grid’ in woods with no electricity
A family of five have left the "rat race" of working life to live off-grid in a woodland community.
The Tizard family have given up many of life's creature comforts – like an indoor loo and a washing machine – to live in the Tinkers Bubble commune in Somerset.
Mum Kirsty said they made the move after she had "what you might call a midlife crisis," and she and husband Nick have never been happier.
Tired of the “rat race” of running two businesses, the Tizard family upped sticks and moved from Devon to their new home, a near self-sufficient community in south Somerset that eschews fossil fuels.
Among 40 acres of woodland near Norton-sub Hamdon, Yeovil, the 14 residents till the land using horses and a Victorian plough, saw timber using a 1930s steam engine and sell homemade apple juice to local shops, reports Somerset Live.
They grow most of their own food with the occasional help of volunteers, who come to experience communal living.
Life moves at a different pace here: anyone in need of a wash can light the wood-burning stove “and a couple of hours later you can have a hot bath”, says Pedro Brace, who joined the community 10 years ago after leaving his office job.
The Tizard family and Tinkers Bubble feature in a BBC Inside Out West documentary airing this Monday.
Tinkers Bubble has been going for 25 years but the Tizards only joined last December.
“We both ran our own businesses for quite a few years, we had five children and a very hectic life,” mum Kirsty told the BBC.
“I had what you might call a midlife crisis – I had a feeling of 'is this all there is to living?' It just seemed a rat race of trying to earn enough to pay the rent.”
Nick added: "Over a long period of time I started feeling fairly guilty about consumption of things, of stuff that we buy constantly that we don't necessarily need.
"Christmases get fairly raucous, we used to buy them lots of presents and I just started to become aware of the wastage that we get from everything that we buy."
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