HELEN Butters has a great expression to describe the return to normal life after completing the astonishing challenge of rowing across the Atlantic.

"It's an adrenaline hangover," says the mum of two from Cawood, who admits adjusting to family and work life has been a lot tougher than anticipated.

"It's been hard. We have all struggled with it a bit. We completely planned for the crossing but didn't think about afterwards."

Helen completed the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, rowing 3,000 miles non-stop for two months with friends and fellow mums Frances Davies and Niki Doeg, from York, and Janette Benaddi, from Burn, in their state-of-the-art boat, Rose. In doing so, the women - all in their 40s and 50s - set a new Guinness world record as the oldest all-female crew to row across an ocean and raised money for two local charities, Maggie’s, which will be opening a new cancer support centre at St James Hospital in Leeds next year, and Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Helen said: "We are really pleased to be back. It has made us really appreciate everything in life, like the school run! It's really exciting doing things like that again after being at sea for more than two months. We are all enjoying everyday things but it is hard to adapt."

Exciting things are still happening, however. Last week they were at Buckingham Palace to present Duke of Edinburgh Awards to young people and will be guests of honour at a string of events over the summer including the grand opening of the York Rescue Boat's new facilities. They've also been booked for BBC's Children In Need.

And their antics in the Atlantic will be the subject of a new book, to be published by Harper Collins hopefully on Mother's Day next year.

Helen envisages the book as an "inspirational memoir". She said: "It will be our four voices. We don't want it to be a book about rowing an ocean. It felt more like a survival challenge with four friends. Our aim is to inspire people. We want it to be a useful book, not just a story. We had so many messages on Facebook from all over the world, people telling us: 'I'm going to do this now'."

The women's challenge certainly captured our imaginations - and the attention of the media. However, during the actual adventure, it was just the four of them in their boat, battling with the elements. Their schedule was gruelling: rowing for two hours then resting for two. When their auto-helm equipment gave up the ghost, three of them needed to be "on shift" at a time, two to row and one to control the rudder by hand.

Helen was profoundly seasick and Niki fell and damaged her coccyx in the early days, forcing her to row with one of her legs extended. To counter their painful backsides, they rubbed antiseptic cream into their derrières. When they ran down their battery by playing too many carols on Christmas Day on their stereo the price they paid was ten days without power, forcing them to pump water by hand until their solar panels powered up their battery again.

There were scary times aplenty too. Helen found it particularly frightening at night in stormy weather when the boat was battered by 40ft waves and turned sideways, threatening a capsize. "It was all hands on deck with us all rowing to turn the boat around, which could take about 40 minutes."

In a hurricane, the women had to row the boat south to miss the eye of the storm then launch the para anchor which basically kept Rose as steady as possible while the worst of the weather passed. During this time, they spent 60 hours locked into the boat's two tiny cabins, waiting for the all clear.

"It was a very tight space, you couldn't stretch your legs out, you could not eat very much," says Helen, who added they only really left the cabin to go to the loo. "It was very noisy - all you could hear were the waves."

It was a credit to their commitment and resilience that not one of them missed a rowing shift during the entire journey.

She added: "It felt like being a visitor in someone else's world. It felt like the Atlantic didn't want us there."

But there were lots of magical moments too. "We saw whales, turtles, dolphins – and even sharks. That was a bit nerve-wracking because the next day Niki and Frances had to jump in the water and go underneath the boat to remove the barnacles. Me and Jeanette stayed on shark watch."

Sun sets were special and at night they would check their course by gazing up at the moon and stars. When they got a tweet of support from Tim Peake on the International Space Station they were elated.

Back in Yorkshire, the women are taking stock of the experience. Helen said: "It has changed us all, but in a good way. We are all positive people. Now we all crave experiences rather than things." So will there be a new challenge? "I think there will be. It might be something to do with bikes and boats."

It's not surprising that the talk now is of a movie about the women's achievement. Archery Pictures are looking for a screenwriter and the women admit to being intrigued as to who might play them on the big screen. Helen said: "The actresses will have to be in their 40s - that's the whole point of us. Angelina Jolie could play me - that would be cool!"