EXCLUSIVE: Strictly professional dancers Janette Manrara and Aljaz Skorjanec speak to the Mirror about their new home, their struggle juggling work with their daughter Lyra and their new priority in life

Strictly professional dancers Janette Manrara and Aljaz Skorjanec quit the hustle and bustle of the city just two years ago for their perfect serene home in Cheshire last year. Sadly, despite the house being everything they’d ever dreamed of, the couple have been forced to move back down south again.

“Awful, awful, absolutely awful,” Aljaz, 35, exclusively tells the Mirror of the move. “Moving home is one of the last things you want to do, let’s be honest. And it doesn’t matter how you do it, if you get someone to help you with it, if you do it yourself. The reality is you’re going to be looking at cardboard for a foreseeable amount of time.”

And there is an added pressure as well – having to keep an eye on their toddler Lyra. “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. So yeah, you kind of find your toothbrush in the outside garage or something.”

Their stunning home was full of personal memories for the couple – who are about to embark on their joint 19-day tour A Night To Remember – including many of Lyra’s firsts. However, Janette, 41, explains that with Aljaz’s return to Strictly and her own commuting twice a week during the autumn and winter made it incredibly difficult for them to sustain as a family.

Janette and Aljaz previously described their Cheshire property as their ‘dream home’(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)

“It was a mix of two things,” Janette says of the reason behind the move. “Obviously, we loved being up north and we fell in love with the house because that was the first home that Lyra lived in. A lot of her first moments were all in that house. There were just so many beautiful memories in that house and the people up north are just such incredibly kind, warm, loving people. There’s a real sense of community there.

“We tried it this year with me commuting to London for It Takes Two and Aljaz staying down in London for the whole series of Strictly. In retrospect, we spent some very, very minimal time together as a family. Lyra and I were traveling up and down twice a week, staying in hotel rooms to try and make it work.

Janette spoke about the memories they cherished in the home(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)

“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 Aljaz is going back to Strictly, which hopefully he is. 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. 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.”

Aljaz quips: “I stayed in a hotel for four months in a row at one point. I felt like Tom Hanks in The Terminal!”

The couple have moved away from their home(Image: Instagram)

Yet, Janette did have one pre-requisite about moving home. “We loved living in the countryside so much,” she says. “When we moved back down close to London, I said to Aljaz that the only way we could do this is if we could find a house that is in the countryside again, because we just love the green and the space.

Janette spoke about how Lyra’s firsts were in the home(Image: Instagram)

“Lyra wakes up in the morning to bird chirping and dew on the grass and views of just green and horses. We’ve got these beautiful little deer [Muntjac] that live near us as well. That is priceless more than anything else for me, the the space of green and fresh air that you get in the countryside.”

Despite their hectic schedules and extra planning required for their daughter, it’s clear that they wouldn’t have it any other way. Speaking of life after welcoming Lyra, Aljaz says: “It’s like flipping a pancake. It’s been the most wholesome and the most loving experience from day one. It changes your life completely. Anyone who has children knows that you find a new love that you didn’t know existed before. You think you love something so much, and then you realise, Oh, I can love something even more.

Aljaž and Janette: A Night To Remember will begin on May 14

“She’s brilliant. She has completely come into our life. Of course, like we said, now you have to schedule everything, but she’s such a little trooper. She’s been in more hotels before she’s two years old than most people do in their lifetime! She’s been on tours, she’s been traveling to America, to everywhere! She’s so good, and I think that she just brightens up every single day.”

Janette adds: “Aljaz and I have always been really in love and had a beautiful marriage, and we really feel like we’ve always been a team in life, and now we’re a team as parents. She’s become the new priority of us and I think that’s been the biggest change. Which we want, of course, that’s what we want to experience! We’re obsessed and we love her.”