The Village Counsellor

25/02/2026

29/01/2026

Family mediation and Parenting Apart support are available locally from Relationships Scotland Orkney - go online or call 01856 877750 to find out more

26/01/2026

A modest redecoration of one wall in my counselling room, with my new arrivals from the Annual Open Exhibition at the Pier Arts Centre... delightful for me to be able work in their company!

05/01/2026

“For years, I would tell it to anyone who would listen: 'I had a breakdown when I was seventeen.’ Most people were embarrassed to hear it, but some were grateful to find a shared thread in their story and mine. Either way, I felt with great certainty that we should talk about these things, and that I, having learned some strategies, should share them. It didn't save me from another dip and another dip, but each time the peril became less. I began to get a feel for my winterings: their length and breadth, their heft. I knew that they didn't last forever. I knew that I had to find the most comfortable way to live through them until spring.

I was always aware that I was flying in the face of polite convention in doing this, and that the times when we fall out of everyday life remain taboo. We're not raised to recognise wintering, or to acknowledge its inevitability. Instead, we tend see it as a humiliation, something that should be hidden from view lest we shock the world too greatly. We put on a brave public face and grieve privately; we pretend not to see other people's pain. We treat each wintering as an embarrassing anomaly that should be hidden or ignored. This means we've made a secret of an entirely ordinary process, and have thereby given those who endure it a ariah status, forcing them to drop out of everyday life in order to conceal their failure. Yet we do this at a great cost. Wintering brings about some of the most profound and insightful moments of our human experience, and wisdom resides in those who have wintered.

In our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter. We don't ever dare to feel its full bite, and we don't dare to show the way that it ravages us. A sharp wintering, sometimes, would do us good. We must stop believing that these times in our life are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower. We must stop trying to ignore them or dispose of them. They are real, and they are asking something of us. We must learn to invite the winter in.”

~ Katherine May: Wintering

05/01/2026

If you’d like to support local mental health and family support, but wonder what being a trustee involves, give me a shout & I’ll be happy to talk. RSO provides counselling, mediation, family & parenting support & so much more to the Orkney community, and we’re a lovely group of folk as well 😊

🌟 VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITY 🌟

Relationships Scotland Orkney is a local charity which supports adults, young people and children through relationship difficulties and associated mental health challenges 🫶

They are looking for tustees to join their board to provide oversight of their work, set the strategic direction for the organisation and ensure good governance of the charity, including the appropriate use of charitable funds 📊 ✔

Trustees are required to attend 4 x 2 hour meetings per year plus an AGM ⌚️

Find out more 👇

https://bit.ly/3MLZsyO

24/12/2025

from the sunny south of Orkney

13/11/2025

The local recovery group (Isle Fight) are holding Orkney's first recovery walk in Kirkwall on the 22nd of November. We are looking forward to being part of this important event.

The plan for the day is:
Meet at midday at the community centre
Pay respects by laying flowers
Proceed on a walk from:

Town Hall - Victoria Street - Junction Road - Tesco - Peedie Sea - Ayre Road - Bridge Street and return to the Town Hall

We would encourage others to get involved either by sharing this poster or by their presence on the day. Any questions, do let us know.

07/11/2025

20/10/2025

Orkney folks - fully funded (so, free to you) training in su***de intervention skills coming up. Do consider joining to become more confident of how you might help someone in distress and maybe save a life.

ASIST Su***de First Aid Training

We’re hosting a 2-day Applied Su***de Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) workshop in December:

📅 Dates: 9th–10th December
⏰ Time: 9.30am – 5.00pm
📍 Venue: UHI Orkney
👩‍🏫 Trainers: Tamsin Bailey & Renate Andrews

ASIST is a practical course that builds confidence and skills through supervised, hands-on learning. It’s designed to help participants become more willing, ready, and able to recognise and support someone at risk of su***de.

A helper can be anyone in a position of trust — colleagues, friends, family, community leaders, or volunteers.

This training is funded by Orkney Alcohol and Drugs Partnership and delivered by UHI Orkney.

👉 Book your place here:
https://mhandsplearning.publichealthscotland.scot/course_registration.aspx?id=eb59f284-4c49-4f89-890a-80f5f8444fea

***dePrevention

12/10/2025

On imposter syndrome & burnout

You didn’t get into cetacean research for the glory or the money, which is fortunate, because there is none. You got into it because somewhere along the way these extraordinary animals captur…

23/09/2025

Grief doesn’t follow a schedule.
And comfort doesn’t always come in human form.
Sometimes it has four paws and a heartbeat…
And sometimes, that’s exactly what saves you.

Not all goodbyes happen in funeral homes.

She had seen him online, my wise-eyed border collie who comforts the grieving.
When she found out her baby girl would be born sleeping, she made just one request:
“Please… can Kermit come?”

So we did.

We met her in the labor and delivery wing. The room was heavy with silence, the kind that settles in when a future has been stolen.

She had picked out a name.
A blanket.
A car seat.
But not an urn.

Kermit walked in gently, no commands.
He padded straight to her bedside and rested his nose at her elbow.
She reached for him, and for a moment- maybe the first one since she heard the words “no heartbeat"- she didn’t feel alone.

Tears rolled off her cheeks, and down her arm grasping his fur as she cradled her daughter for the first… and last… time.
And for two hours, Kermit & I stayed in that room. Not moving. Just being. When we left, he escorted her infant to her final destination, and ultimately was there the day we took her tiny urn home.

Grief doesn’t follow a schedule.
And comfort doesn’t always come in human form.

Sometimes it has four paws and a heartbeat…
And sometimes, that’s exactly what saves you.

Kermit became a welcomed visitor during the most heartbreaking times.💔🐾 If this moved you, share it. Someone needs to know they’re not alone in their grief.