A CUMBRIAN family 'felt like they had won the lottery' when they were reunited with their much loved tortoise, following its eight month long disappearance.

Linzi Ackerley, from Seaton, had lost all hope of being reunited with her pet tortoise Toby after it disappeared in July last year, leaving her 10 year old daughter Indea Walsh asking where the family's much loved pet was almost every day.

The family were given a glimmer of hope last August when a tortoise was handed into a local vets, but after finding out this wasn't Toby they gave up all hope and presumed he had been killed or died over the bleak Cumbria winter.

Linzi said: "It went missing in July and where I live there is just fields and fields and fields and we just never thought we would see it again. Then about five or six weeks ago it turned up in my next door neighbour's field.

"It's got so far up the field before, but we have been able to see it. This time it was gone and we looked for weeks and weeks.

"It's never hibernated before so it's obviously hibernated on its own, but (when he came back) I felt like I had won the lottery."

Despite being 'filthy' when he was found Linzi said Toby is now 'absolutely perfect' and living happily in an enclosure within the family's back garden.

Having owned Toby for around ten years, Linzi said: "When next door came and said I nearly dropped. He said 'I think I've found your tortoise' and I was like 'Is it alive?' We never thought we would ever see it again.

"I had to go and pick my little girl up from school who had asked every day where he was at and my mam was just sat cuddling it when she come in from school, 20 minutes after we had found it and she (India) just burst out crying, she was so relieved."

And Toby has continued in his fashion of surprising the family, when they recently found out the male tortoise they have loved for over ten years is actually a girl.

Linzi said: "It's called Toby, but we have just recently found out it's a girl, but we are still calling it Toby."