I'm living the dream with Strictly's fantastic Flavia

After all, fantasies are wonderful – but can easily slip right through our fingers.

For me, the chance to join the Strictly Come Dancing team is fabulous fantasia – but if I am to find any kind of success, a grip on reality will be essential.

So how to turn a dream into reality? Well, sheer hard work is hardly the stuff that dreams are made of, but it’s certainly a start. I have always been a very disciplined person and one I make my mind up to do something I pull all the stops out.

The Goddess of Expectation, Venus, soon revealed her plan when Flavia came into the rehearsal room clutching our first number: Venus – the Bananarama hit. And with that, we finally started work.

WATCH OUT FOR STRICTLY COME DANCING GOSSIP WITH RUSSELL ON MONDAY.

But then the imp of Forgetfulness struck. No dance shoes arrived with the crew – and I had to rehearse in standard trainers instead.

Unfortunately, they aren’t the right thing for this sort of work and before I knew it I was hopping around the dance floor with a throbbing toe. Come Sunday, I was having a full-blown foot emergency and had to call on some expert chiropodist help.

But I wasn’t giving up. Far from it. In fact, for three days Flavia continued to choreograph while I continued to limp around and did what I could to help.

Forget Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes; it was just me with a red foot.

But while I am out my comfort zone in one way, I am so cosy in another. For whatever happens, I will have no regrets. I am not in it to win it, but here strictly to live my dream of getting fit and doing something I once could only have dreamed about.

And for that, thank you Flavia. You are a goddess.