As any parent will understand, it’s been a rollercoaster week for Ola and James Jordan and their four-year-old daughter, Ella.

The former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancers are getting ready to take their little one on a luxurious holiday this week as they take a well-earned break after Ella’s first half-term of big school, and James wrapping his mammoth Strictly Legends of the Dancefloor tour.

But the work doesn’t stop there, because as soon as the Jordans touch down in Blighty after their upcoming trip, it’s back to work for James who will head to Chesterfield Theatre to perform as Dandini in a string of shows for their Cinderella Pantomime.

In her column for HELLO!, Ola opens up about their exciting trip, preparing for James’ departure and how Ella hitting a major milestone… 

Holiday to Dubai

We’re all so excited because we’re flying to Dubai this week. We’ll be right by the pools and the beaches, and Ella tells me, ‘I’m so excited to go on holiday, I’m going to go swimming and go to the water park!’

We didn’t go on holiday before James started the tour because he wanted to get ready, and we went away in May, but that was more of a work trip, so we haven’t had a holiday this year.

We thought we’d go on a holiday straight after the tour before he starts his pantomime run in Cinderella. As soon as he gets back, he’s going to be away again for six weeks.

It’s just nice to go as a family and enjoy ourselves, we’re really looking forward to it.

Ella and James reuniting after the tour

It was strange when James returned from tour, of course, we missed him, but my routine has been messed up a bit.

When he was away, the bedtimes were earlier as was dinner and there were no distractions – it was only me and Ella. And when he got back, suddenly there was a mess everywhere and routines going out of the window.

For James, it was strange because he was dancing two shows a day, so his energy was really high and then he was on a massive comedown. I know what it’s like to be on tour and come back, and think, ‘Well, what now?’ but I quickly gave him a lot of jobs to do, so he’s fine.

We then went to Robin Windsor’s memorial evening. It was lovely seeing old friends and people who we used to work with to catch up. Of course, it was very sad, but it was also a celebration of his life. 

James returning to work for panto run

James is performing in panto after our Dubai holiday and after being away for so long with The Legnds tour, we’re going to miss him a lot.

We won’t be able to see him as much because he’s performing in Chesterfield, which is over four hours away, so he won’t be able to visit as often.

But it’s a great job and James is a fantastic stage actor and performer so he is really looking forward to it. He has done panto before as a baddie, and he was brilliant at scaring all the kids as you can imagine!

He’ll be back at Christmas but only on Christmas Day. He has three shows on Christmas Eve and on Boxing Day he’s doing a matinee and an evening show. He’s going to be very busy.

I will take Ella to see him though. We’ll drive up with my friends and watch because Ella loves Cinderella. James is playing Dandini the psychic prince and it’ll be fun for Ella to see him in that role. She hasn’t seen him or me in panto because the last time we did it, I was pregnant with her!

Ella is definitely going to be a little actress. She’s dancing at Panto School on a Tuesday evening and I think she’ll be quite good. I’ve noticed she’s been putting accents on for fun including a Queen’s accent, it’s so funny. She’s a bit of a character, so I reckon she’d be great at acting and she already loves singing and dancing.

She also loves learning. She’s been reading her books and she’s very curious, she always wants to learn. Ella’s always asking how to spell this or that, and she’s got this pad where she writes notes.

Ella’s big announcement

We’ve also had a major development: Ella has been going to bed on her own. She gives loads of cuddles and kisses to mummy and daddy before bed, and then she goes off like a big girl now.

She usually still comes to see us at 1 am and I don’t know how we’re going to change that, but we’ll find a way to stop it. But at least in the evenings now I don’t have to sit with her, she just goes in by herself now it’s nice.

Ella has also been staying with my nieces and my sister for the days that we were working recently, and I went to see James’ tour by myself as well a few times. Last night she just said, ‘Oh mummy and daddy have a lovely time’, before we left. She just gets it now.

I’ve tried to explain to her she’s very lucky because her mummy and daddy are around a lot of the time, whereas a lot of children’s parents work much more than we do. Our work is very flexible, so she does have us a lot of the time, much more than other kids. 

Halloween

James and I worked through Halloween filming Dance Shred but we went trick-or-treating with Ella, who was so excited. We did a lot of steps around where we live and a lot of people go to real effort to decorate their houses. It was amazing and Ella had a great time. It’s so fun for the young kids.

Ella was so delicate; she wasn’t pushing in at all. And then she’d be offered some treats and she would take just one sweet. I said to her, ‘Ella, you can take a handful because your hands are only small’, but she would only take one. She’s so gentle. Meanwhile, Daddy was raiding the bucket as soon as we got back!

Ella was dressed up like a skeleton witch, so she wore a witch’s dress with a skeleton on it but she didn’t want to wear the hat.

There was a lady whose door we knocked on and she said, ‘I’m so sorry I’ve run out, but you are so cute’, and then she went back in and got a whole bag of M&Ms and James’ face said, ‘Oh my god’. But he didn’t want to share the bag with me or Ella!