And in answer to....

....the question - how does the heating oil get to the house? It comes over on the ferry - but as we don't have a Ro-Ro ferry the oil tanker has to deposit the oil into a small (1200 litre) tank on the pier in Stromness. The tank then gets winched onto the ferry and off onto the back of a trailer at Graemsay. Then it trundles up on the trailer behind a tractor and is pumped into the tank at the back of the house using the "island" electric pump. The system works well but takes some co-ordination as Graemsay only has two tanks available on the Stromness pier and these are also used for diesel for tractor fuel on Graemsay, plus of course a number of homes use oil for heating. However with a little co-ordination and planning, so far all has worked well!