'Amazing but surreal': reality still dawning for winners of UK's biggest lottery jackpot
The Guardian|May 20, 2022
But on what Jess said was a "normal husband-and-wife grumpy morning" on Wednesday 11 May, the couple's lives and their dreams for the future were changed.
Jamie Grierson
'Amazing but surreal': reality still dawning for winners of UK's biggest lottery jackpot

A little over a week ago Joe and Jess Thwaite were facing months, maybe years, of renovating what was their dream home - a house in the Gloucestershire countryside with a bucket in the hall to catch the rain falling through the leaky roof.

But on what Jess said was a "normal husband-and-wife grumpy morning" on Wednesday 11 May, the couple's lives and their dreams for the future were changed.

Joe, 49, woke up at 5.15am and, after sorting out the couple's dogs, checked his phone to discover he had won £184,262,899.10 on EuroMillions - the UK's biggest ever lottery haul. "I looked at the amount and I put the phone down," he told a press conference near Cheltenham, hosted by the broadcaster Dermot O'Leary. "And I picked the phone up again, and I looked at the amount again.

"I first thought it was in thousands," he said, but then he "started counting the digits", adding: "Amazing, but also surreal."

This story is from the May 20, 2022 edition of The Guardian.

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This story is from the May 20, 2022 edition of The Guardian.

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