Strictly Come Dancing stars Janette Manrara and Aljaž Škorjanec have opened up about a "stressful" life change after moving to a new home.
Speaking to the Mirror, Janette and Aljaž explained that they had been forced to move back down south after just two years in the Cheshire countryside.
Revealing the reason for their move, Janette said that commuting to London twice a week for It Takes Two combined with Aljaž's return to Strictly made living up north too difficult.
"It was a mix of two things. Obviously, we loved being up north and we fell in love with the house because that was the first home that [daughter] Lyra lived in. A lot of her first moments were all in that house," Janette explained.
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"We tried it this year with me commuting to London for It Takes Two and Aljaž staying down in London for the whole series of Strictly," she continued, admitting they spent "very, very minimal time together as a family" and that she and Lyra were travelling twice a week and staying in hotels.
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"It’s just not feasible for us to do that because the priority is family and spending time together and Lyra's well-being and that is not going to be sustainable if Aljaž is going back to Strictly, which hopefully he is," Janette added.
"So we thought it’s better to be closer to London and at least we have slightly more guarantee that Lyra will have a bit more normalcy in her life.
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"She'll be home, she'll be going to the same nursery, she'll be in the same kind of routine, and then we'll get to really spend more time together as a family than not. But never say never about going back up north, because we did love it up there."
Speaking of the move, Aljaž said: "It's very stressful and it takes so much longer with a little one, especially a toddler, because she finds it hilarious opening the boxes, and you don't want to stop her either."
Strictly Come Dancing airs on Saturdays on BBC One, while spin-off Strictly: It Takes Two airs on weeknights on BBC Two. Both shows are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
