In conversation
It was a leap of faith when dancer Flavia Cacace and her actor husband Jimi Mistry swapped the spotlight for a farm in Devon. The couple, who met on Strictly, talk to Ella Dove about quickstepping among the crops
FLAVIA SAYS…
For many years, Jimi and I harboured a secret dream – of the day we’d pack up and escape our bungalow in Guildford for a simpler life in the country. As a professional dancer, I was often touring for months at a time, while Jimi would be chasing acting jobs; life felt busy and chaotic. The countryside, however, was where we found solace. ‘If only we could move here,’ we’d say on weekend breaks, before life got in the way again.
The turning point came in 2020 when Covid stopped us in our tracks, as it did so many other people. Jimi and I had set up a fitness business, offering dance and exercise classes online, and six months into the pandemic, we realised it just wasn’t feasible any more. The market was saturated and we weren’t making enough money. We felt lost and dejected, but after a lot of discussion, we realised it was the trigger we needed to finally change our lives.
It was a huge leap of faith, particularly as neither of us had lived in the countryside before, but we put our bungalow on the market and eventually found a converted stone barn in North Devon. We hadn’t been to Devon before, but as soon as we viewed the property, we both fell uncharacteristically silent – with seven acres of land, including paddocks and a polytunnel to grow food, it had everything we’d dreamed of. When we got back in the car, we turned to each other, smiled and said, ‘It’s the one, isn’t it?’
Eight months later, we moved into our new home, along with our cockapoos, Pablo and Zak. There was a big winter storm that day and the house had been vacant for months, so it was horrendously overgrown and neglected. With the wind howling and rain hammering, we couldn’t get the boiler working or the Aga, and we couldn’t find the keys to the garage, where we’d stored our bedding. As we lay on sofa cushions on the floor shivering, we wondered what on earth we’d done!
The next day, however, the hard work began. There was a lot of physical labour involved: clearing piles of logs, cleaning the polytunnel, which was green when it should have been transparent, jet washing the greenhouses and putting in new glass.
We had absolutely no experience, so we learned from books, the internet and kind locals.
The days were incredibly full-on, and yet we were surprised how quickly we took to our new rural life. We told each other we wouldn’t plant anything or get any animals in the first year, as there was so much to do – but within a few months, we’d gone to town with sowing seeds an
