Ex-Ender Kara moves in with Strictly lover Artem

Strictly Come Dancing winner Kara Tointon has set up home with lover Artem Chigvintsev - but says she's in no rush to walk down the aisle. The pair - who met on the BBC One dance show - have moved in together and former EastEnder Kara said she is "enjoying having that nice settled feeling". They posed together at their new north London flat for Hello! but told the magazine that marriage was not on the cards yet. Kara said: "I dream of getting married one day, but at the moment we're just happy being happy. "Don't get me wrong, I would love to. But my parents never married and are still together. I would rather have a nice life together than worry about a silly date." The couple began dating after hooking up during last year's Strictly although Kara said she had planned to stay "single for two years". She had also decided to give up acting to become an interior designer with the money from Strictly financing her college studies. But her meeting with her Russian dance partner and a leading role in West End theatre production Pygmalion stifled both plans. Kara - whose flat is now the home for their Strictly glitterball trophy - said she and her boyfriend are like chalk and cheese. "Artem is calm and chilled out. He's very organised and everything is very particular. I dream of being neat."

CATEGORIES

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.