Flavia Cacace's blog by Flavia_Cacace

Well what can I say? Apart from that hard work and a positive fun mind gets results. The last 3 weeks training with Russell have been so much fun and so worthwhile, it's bizarre to think that all that training is for a minute and a half performance! It just makes me think how did we ever put Midnight Tango together?! However when it does come together nothing beats the buzz you get from the audience. I never really remember the judges comments or scores, as I never like to think we are performing for them. It's the audience on the night and at home you want to reach and Russell certainly did that, just as I knew he would. I was even more stunned by the standing ovation, AMAZING, first of the series and the first on an opening night.

I was incredibly proud of him and most of all I'm so happy that those who thought I'd been unlucky this year have changed their tune and seen that Russell is full of ambition and charisma. I couldn't have wished for anyone else (maybe just Jimi (!) but I know Russell would understand lol). Now for the Salsa. Well Russell loves the Latino dances and therefore is very excited about this dance. We were able to start this routine a little last week which was great and we have a fab song to dance to. Mind you it's still quite a shock to go from 3 weeks to 4 days to perfect a routine, but as I said before, pure hard work and a fun positive attitude gets results and I'm a strong believer that if you do that you should be proud, no matter what the result.

Monday and Tuesday were physically hard both for Russell and I. Your body and mind are still recovering from the emotions and physical tiredness of the previous weekend and before you know it, another one is upon you. In amongst our hard focused sessions we do have a tremendous amount of fun. So many times we are in fits of laughter, I hope you'll see some of those moments in our VT's. The most memorable moment this week was a morning trip to the beautiful village of Portmeirion, I love Snowdonia, it's so peaceful and therapeutic but this place is stunning.

It looks like a 'little Italy' with quirky little roads and colourful houses. We had a lovely walk around and because the tide was out, the film crew suggested we walked down a beautiful set of large steps and go for a walk on the beach. We thought what a lovely idea and headed down these beautiful steps. The sun was shining and lots of onlookers were excited to see we were there. The next thing we know we take our first elegant stride onto this beautiful beach and yeeeeee it's quick sand! Down we go, and I mean down. I get stuck after my first stride whilst Russell manages to salsa 4 steps away and proceed to get well and truly stuck himself, he leans towards me and I catch him, we are both laughing so much!

By this point the camera crew have hurried down the stairs and are pulling us both out. You should have seen us. All I can say is that we certainly know how to entertain our audience any day of the week, our ribs hurt so much afterwards from the intense laughter. I will never forget my first trip to Portmeirion with my friend Russell. As you can imagine, it was hard to rehearse after that as we kept thinking back to our adventure! However we did manage a very good 4-hour session and had a breakthrough with the salsa. I'm very much looking forward to Friday’s rehearsal in the studio and Saturday's show, it's going to be fun no matter what.

I was so spoilt by Jimi last weekend making me his amazing Mistry packed lunches. I had homemade soup (spinach and leek and potato) freshly made sandwiches (chicken pesto and tuna mayo) home made edemame beans (the best I've had), pretzels and some delicious home made pasta. Bring on my Mistry packed lunches this weekend too they'll get me through another weekend at the BBC! I'll share my edemame beans with Russell as he loves them too. I truly hope you all enjoy our next performance. We've worked as hard as possible and still have two days to go, so let's hope we can entertain you all once again. Lots of love and thanks for your much-appreciated support FC xxx