I'll never wreck your barbecue again, says weathergirl Andrea

My job has seen me training as a Formula 4 racing driver, being an extra in a Bollywood film and even being described as a 'giraffe having sex' for my efforts in ITV's Dancing On Ice. It's a strange life being a weathergirl.

GMTV hired me as a weather presenter 11 years ago and during my time there I have done that and everything else besides.

Sunny style: Retiring weathergirl Andrea McLean

Many of my non-meteorological activities were the result of a strand in which fellow presenter Donna Bernard and I tried to outdo each other. She did a set at the Comedy Store, I appeared in the musical Chicago. She walked a tightrope, I was strapped to the top of a bi-plane.

While filming my Bollywood scene in Bombay, I had to direct a separate segment myself when my producer fell ill. At one point I wandered into the city's open-air laundry and said: 'Here I am in the heart of Bombay's colourful...' I got no chance to finish because we were chased away by furious washermen. It turned out women weren't allowed in the laundry.

I also spent a week at Donington Park training for my Formula 4 licence. I was the only girl on the course, so there was some chest-thumping from my fellow racers, but I got on well with them in the end - mainly because I finished last.

Of course, my main role has been weather presenting. I've given broadcasts from hills in Scotland, valleys in Wales and fields of flowers in England.

Telling a weather 'story' has meant driving into treacherous conditions as radio reports advise people to stay indoors. I've waded through floods and tramped through snow - while telling people that, hopefully, the sun will be out soon.

Within a few months of becoming a weather presenter, people started to notice me in the street. Before long I couldn't leave my house without a white van man shouting: 'Didn't predict this, did you love?' And people still stop me to tell me I ruined their barbecue.

Andrea steps outside her weathergirl role for a stint in the musical Chicago

Coming into the studio is a relief after being out on the road - even if I have to put up with the pranks of GMTV news presenter Penny Smith. Penny is the only person I know who has worked in breakfast television for 15 years and managed to go out every night of the week.

Her ferocious tidiness, love of bad puns and general pedantry is terrifying and fun. And I love her for it. She's become one of my dearest friends.

She has tried to put me off at least one broadcast a day by pulling faces, making rude gestures while I'm on air or casually asking with three seconds to go before we are live: 'Are you really going to wear that?'

When I arrived at GMTV in 1997, I was working as a presenter for the UK-based Weather Channel. After a few months I was asked to travel the country, taking part in live broadcasts. I loved it.

Then I had the chance to present the show from the studio. The first time - with Eamonn Holmes in 2000 - I was so frightened I couldn't breathe, hear or see. It took until Wednesday for me to stop wiping my sweaty palms on the seat during the advert breaks.

At the end of my first week, I asked Eamonn how I'd done. The newspapers hadn't been kind, one referring to me as 'the most irritating person on television'.

Eamonn told me to relax and be myself. 'And remember An-dreya,' he said, 'You are paid for when it goes wrong, not when it goes right.'

Now I've decided to hang up my weathergirl anorak. But this job has given me the chance to experience things I couldn't have dreamed of.

Skating badly one morning while doing the weather from the Natural History Museum's ice rink changed my life. Olympic skating champion Christopher Dean saw my report and told the Dancing On Ice team he'd found a replacement for a drop-out in their celebrity line-up.

A week later I was hurling around the ice with Christopher and his Olympic partner Jayne Torvill as I prepared to perform in front of 11million viewers. Judge Jason Gardner was spot-on when he said I 'looked like a giraffe having sex on ice'.

After I was voted off, I was asked to host Dancing On Ice Extra with fellow rubbish skater Andi Peters.

For the past year I've been a host on ITV1's lunchtime chat show, Loose Women, where anything can happen. Being a weather presenter has been an excellent preparation.