Carol Kirkwood: Why the time is right for me to retire - and what's next

At 2:45am, much of the country is fast asleep - but for nearly three decades that's when Carol Kirkwood's day has begun.

Now, after leaving the BBC this week, the early alarm is the first thing she's ready to leave behind - it's "well and truly going in the bin".

It marks the end of an era, not just for Kirkwood, but for millions of viewers who have watched her present the weather forecast.

She has been the main weather presenter on BBC Breakfast since 2010, having started her BBC presenting career on the news channel.

Reflecting on her 28 years at the corporation, she tells us the biggest privilege was presenting the weather out in the field because "you meet members of the public who are always so lovely and kind to me".

Although it's "impossible to pinpoint one standout moment", reporting from events such as the Wimbledon tennis championships and Chelsea Flower Show were some of her highlights.

"I've reported from so many beautiful places and visited a lot of the country that I might not otherwise have seen," she adds.

Last week, while she was reporting on the weather at the Tower of London, she was given a special gold poppy that "is incredibly rare and hardly anyone has one".

"I was so surprised by the kindness they showed me," she says. Earlier this week she was "left in tears" after RHS Garden Wisley renamed its weather station in honour of her.

"The thing is you just go to work to do your job - you don't realise how appreciated you are," she says.

"You don't expect people to come and tell you how good you are because you're just doing your job.

"It's fabulous but it makes it even harder to leave."

But the 63-year-old, from Morar on Scotland's west coast, will miss her colleagues above all else.

"I love the weather and I'm fascinated by it but it's undoubtedly the people that make a job and it's so sad saying goodbye to them because I've known so many of them for decades. I know we'll stay in touch but it won't be the same."

On the flip side, without the 2:45am alarm, she "cannot wait to sit in the garden in the summer in the evening or go to the theatre without worrying about the lack of sleep I would get".

In a glittering career, Kirkwood has also reported for The One Show and competed on Strictly Come Dancing in 2015, reaching week eight with her partner Pasha Kovalev.

She has repeatedly been named best TV weather presenter at the TV and Radio Industries Club Awards.

'I should get on with my retirement'

In 2023, Kirkwood married police officer Steve Randall and one of the main reasons she chose to retire was to spend more time with him.

She'd been considering it for about six months and discussing it regularly with Steve and she explains that they kept coming back to the simple question: what are we waiting for?

"I'm not getting any younger, I'm newly married and we've had some losses in our lives recently."

She didn't elaborate on what losses she had experienced but says it helped her realise "I should get on with my retirement and that's what I'm going to do".

She's most excited to go travelling and has already planned trips to France and Italy.

"The freedom of being able to get in the car, drive and go anywhere we want for as long as we want is really appealing," she adds.

She and Steve love walking and she feels acutely aware she'll be "turning 64 in May and we want to do this while we're fit and healthy".

As for her other hobbies, her sixth romance novel is out in October and she has committed to writing at least two more books after that. She also says she'd love to learn the guitar and get a couple of cats.

When Kirkwood began forecasting in the 1990s, the job looked very different.

"We had little symbols of a sun and a cloud that would cover a whole area and that would be it," she explains. "Now we have 3D graphics that move across the area which is a lot clearer and easier to understand."

The weather has changed in almost three decades, too. "We used to have four definitive seasons and now they are such a muddle because of climate change."

She might be a pro at presenting the weather but it wasn't quite her dream job growing up, as she admits: "Not in a million years did I think I'd be doing this."

"When I was a child I wrote to Blue Peter producer Biddy Baxter because I wanted to be a presenter on the show as they always looked like they were having such good fun."

Her advice to anyone looking to pursue a similar career to her is to "always follow your dreams and put yourself out there".

"If you followed your dreams and they don't come true then at least you know you would have tried," she says.

Kirkwood's dreams did come true and now her dream retirement "can finally begin".