REAL LIFE VICTORIAN
A woman has taken her house back in time - by spending £10,000 to transform it into her Victorian dream home. Quirky spinster Julia Wood, 42, lives her life like a 19th century lady and can often be seen leaving her terraced house wearing ankle length velvet and carrying a parasol. The self confessed "eccentric" has transformed all five rooms of her property in Leicester with late 19th or early 20th century decor. Her lounge, bathroom, bedroom and kitchen are filled with antique furniture, fireplaces and artefacts and even nude portraits complete with lighting from the period. She has a large mahogany mantle piece in her lounge and sips tea from an 1890s crockery set she says she bought for just £10. Her kitchen, which also acts a sitting room, includes an Edwardian day bed, wood burning stove, antique tub chair, pine table and even a black fridge. The author and writer, who has lived in the home for two years, is an avid Oscar Wilde fan and says she lives her life like a character from one of this plays. She said: "I must have a Victorian or Edwardian aura. I was just born in the wrong era. But Downton Abbey has changed things lately. Sales of long gloves have gone up hugely, I understand. All of a sudden I'm in fashion.
Other great stories
NEW FLEECE OF LIFE FOR WHEEL CHAIR SHEEP
A disabled sheep is enjoying a new fleece of life after receiving a specially-designed wheelchair .
ABANDONED CARE HOME LIES FORGOTTEN
BEHIND the doors of this building, with its stacks of mattresses and discarded remains of wheelchairs, lies another victim of austerity cuts .
STUNNING INTERSTELLAR PATTERNS
IN a galaxy far, far away, this collection of stunning interstellar formations will leave you STARSTRUCK .
MAN CONTINUES HIS WORLD MAP BACK TATTOO
An American man continues on his mission to document his journey around the globe by completing a world map tattoo on his back .
£34m TAX FRAUD RACKET JAILED
A man who conned tax officials out of £34 million and funded a lavish lifestyle of luxury hotels and restaurants has been jailed for one of the longest sentences in British criminal fraud history .
BABY WHALE AND MOTHER LAP UP TOURIST ATTENTION
A grey whale and her calf greet an audience of awestruck admirers on the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico .
IRELAND'S HIDDEN BEAUTY
THE TOWERING Irish cliffs of Moher stand tall over the rippling Atlantic Ocean .
WOMAN REVEALS HOW DAUGHTER WAS STABBED TO DEATH BY VIOLENT EX WHILE HER CHILDREN WATCHED
A mother-of-four has revealed how her daughter was stabbed to death by her ex partner, while their horrified children watched on .
WOMAN RECORDED VIOLENT BF STRANGLING HER AND THREATENING TO KILL HER WITH A KNIFE- WHEN HE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED HER SHE SAW HIM JAILED
Gabrielle Dale, 26, was subjected to seven years of coercive control and physical abuse at the hands of her violent boyfriend Sean Owen, 29 .
PELICANS CLASH OVER FOOD
LIFTING their heads high and bumping beaks, these aggressive pelicans clash over fish .
FISH AND BIRD TANGO
A trout manages to escape the jaws of a hungry cormorant - only to find itself back inside the bird's long beak .
DEAD MEDIA: ARTIST CREATES SKULL OUT OF OBSOLETE VHS
If you're ever struggling to find a use for your old VHS tapes you might want to take a tip from this innovative artist .