Mum-of-six Lizzie George tells us why she ditched bricks and mortar to live the green dream in a motorhome
ANNA BAILEY
Lizzie George, 58, and her husband Pete – aka “the axe thrower” – swapped a six-bedroom house for a motorhome in 2021 and they’ve never looked back. Spurred on by David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, it was all part of their mission to live a more sustainable life.
After spending winter in Spain, the couple, who have six children between them, are back in the UK for the summer. But Lizzie, who runs an online green cleaning business, and Pete, who coaches people to set up axe-throwing venues, are already planning their next adventure.
Here, Lizzie tells us that – despite brutal winters and menopausal cabin fever – the simple life is the way forward for her.
My husband Pete is always coming up with crazy solutions. So when, in September 2020, we found ourselves with a dilemma, he had an idea that ended up changing our lives forever.
Pete worked for a bank at the time and had been offered a new contract in Brussels. “Would you and the dog like to come too?” he asked me.
When the flat his job provided wouldn’t allow the dog, he wasn’t put off.
“We’ll get a motorhome,” he declared. “I can go to work and we’ll travel at the weekends. It’ll be fantastic!”
It didn’t seem like such a crazy idea. By then we’d already started our sustainable journey. After watching David Attenborough’s Blue PlanetI’d been thinking about the single-use plastic in my home, as well as what I was eating and how I was travelling.
We had loved caravanning when our kids were little, but the Land Rover Discovery we used to pull it wasn’t environmentally friendly. So we decided to sell it and get electric bikes. We knew we weren’t going back to a caravan because we had nothing to pull it. So in September 2020, we went for it and bought a motorhome.
At first we decided to rent our house in Cheltenham to our two adult sons, who still lived at home, while we tried out motorhome living.
Downsizing from a six-bedroom house to our van was really hard. There was an incredible amount of decluttering. I had to think about the life I wanted to lead and what I needed to keep to lead it. I didn’t need all those clothes. And I had a cabinet full of china I had to let go. I kept some precious items, like Granny’s teapot. And, in a real role reversal, I still have a box in my daughter’s attic!
I struggled with th
