A LOCAL residential home carer is celebrating a National Lottery windfall of £87,544 after matching five numbers and the bonus ball on the mid-week Lotto draw of Wednesday, June 12.

Former public house landlady Diana Mitchell, 54, mother of three grown-up children, lives in the village of Llanmiloe on the outskirts of Pendine.

On Tuesday, she and her boyfriend, Huw Thomas, toasted her win in the grounds of Laugharne Castle.

Diana, who enters two lines for the two weekly draws, used Huw's and her own dates of birth to produce the winning line.

She recounted how, on the night of the draw, she and Huw had watched a television murder mystery in which a couple, also living in a small coastal village, stabbed their baby sitter for her winning Lottery ticket.

"I was in the kitchen tidying up and had picked up the bread knife when I realised we hadn't checked the Lotto," she recalled.

"I went back into the lounge and asked Huw to look up the numbers on the teletext. I jokingly waved the knife and told him that if I'd won not to have any ideas from the film we'd just seen. We had a good laugh about it.

"As we were checking the numbers Huw realised we had the first four. I think the occasion got to him and he switched the television off. I told him to stop messing about and he quickly turned it back on and, as they say... the rest is history.

"Some people may think it's not a life changing amount, but it does show anyone can win. To me it means future security. I intend to invest most of it and I shan't be worrying about the bills in future.

"We've only just booked a family holiday in Ohio, so it has come at the right time."

For the past 15 months Diana has worked at the Doly-y-Felin Home for the Elderly, St Clears, where they appreciate what it's like to come up trumps on the Lotto. Six years ago 32 care assistants at the home shared in a £258,238 win.

The winning line last Wednesday was 1, 2, 10, 34, 47, 48 and the bonus number, 12.