Bex Bird lives in a yurt in West Cornwall with her two children, Senned (10) and Eidothea (9). Her older children are Matty (29), Ben (28), Caleb (25), Nelly (23) and Bryn (17)
We moved in in 2017. I’d always wanted to build my own eco home, live more lightly on the planet and get back to nature. As it happened, I got divorced and my financial circumstances weren’t as good as they should have been. I had bought the yurt to use as a place to run workshops, and I thought, ‘I could live in this’.
We could begin my dream of getting back to nature and living with a very small footprint. I found a community in Cornwall where I could put it up. We call it ‘the unintentional community’.
The landowner rented little plots of land for people to live sustainably on, and we began as neighbours. But then over lockdown we formed into a proper community; started projects like polytunnels and ponds and shared and created together.
I set my sights high and wanted to be fully off-grid. We had mains water on the site, which I could bring to my pitch, but also an alternative supply that used the natural water source on the hill. That’s an ongoing project, which needs filters and so on.
I had solar panels, two wood-burning ranges; one to heat and one to cook on, and a central heating system with radiators and running hot water. I did off-grid in style!
