Strictly stars Janette Manrara and Aljaz Skorjanec swapped city life for a dreamy Cheshire abode just two years ago, but the pair have revealed why they recently chose to pack up and head back down south. The couple, who are about to embark on their joint 19-day tour, A Night To Remember, made the difficult decision to move back South due to their work commitments and struggling to spend time together.
The Strictly duo opened up to The Mirror about the ordeal with Alijaz, 35, describing the move as “awful, awful, absolutely awful.” He told the publication: “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.”
The professional dancers admitted that the relocation has been extra taxing because they have their little one in tow. Aljaz shared: “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 Cheshire house held countless special moments, including many milestones for their daughter Lyra. Yet, with Aljaz’s return to Strictly and Janette’s bi-weekly commute for It Takes Two, the couple found maintaining their family life too challenging.
Janette said: “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 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.”
The challenges of commuting for work while maintaining family time also played a role. “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.”
But Janette admitted that it wasn’t “feasible” so they made the decision to be closer to London as family and Lyra’s wellbeing are their priority.
She told The Mirror: “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.”
Janette had just one condition when it came to relocating their home: she yearned for the serenity of rural life. “We loved living in the countryside so much,” she reflects fondly. “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.”