RNLI Museum, Whitby

We've had a few crazy weeks at work! With just the two of us working, we have had to cover every day.

We just took one day off in February. That was for a quick trip home as I needed to have blood tests. These resulted a couple of weeks later in a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes. It's no great surprise. After all, several family members had it, including my Dad. My biggest concern on hearing the news was that it might curtail our future travel plans! I have an appointment in a couple of weeks' time to discuss everything with the diabetic nurse. In the meantime, I am doing my best to change my diet and do more exercise. I really don't want to have to start on medication!

As we were driving back to Whitby after my appointment, we heard the news that Steve Wright had died suddenly. It upset me more than I imagined it would. It feels like I have been listening to him for most of my life. Until recently, he still presented the afternoon show on Radio 2 and provided the soundtrack to my daily life. Even now, we still listen to him every weekend on Sunday Love Songs. It will be strange not to hear his voice any more!

The following day, we heard that the Alaska to Panama leg of our upcoming Americas trip has been cancelled. It's disappointing, but we were probably stretching our budget a bit too far anyway. So, we will concentrate on Colombia to Brazil and then see what happens after that. We paid our next instalment so it looks like that is definitely happening! On that basis, we ordered a tent from Amazon which we will practice with when the weather improves!

Our colleagues returned to site on Tuesday and started back at work yesterday. We worked with them to do a proper handover and now we have our first relaxing day off in quite a long time! Going forward, we will be working three days on, three days off for the rest of the season. We won't know what to do with ourselves!

Our first port of call today was the RNLI Museum in town. The RNLI celebrates 200 years of its existence this year, so there is a special exhibition to commemorate that. The museum also tells the stories of heroic rescues and lives saved by the crews of the Whitby lifeboats throughout the years. It was a fascinating visit.Read more