Hive | Poetry & Pandemonium

5.45am
The day starts as usual, the alarm goes off too late, the Twins decide to eat cornflakes only if soaked in orange juice and Annie desperately tries to find one piece of clothing that does not have a banana smeared on it. The house feels freezing, the temperatures must have dropped overnight and Annie turns up the heating before she has to rescue Twin A from the recycling box.
6.45am
Twin A is trapped strapped in the car seat, Twin B is chasing the cat. The cat jumps up onto the roof of the car, Twin B throws himself on the ground and Annie swiftly shoves him into the car. Now that both twins are wailing and the cat has walked away, tail up high, with smug expression on its face, Annie wishes for a moment she could swap lives with the family feline and she starts the engine. ‘Mummy, I hate you.’
9.01am
With the Twins delivered to nursery, banana wiped off her skirt and the traffic moving an inch per hour, Annie turns down the heating in the car and slaps her forehead. Not again! She forgot to switch the heating off at home. Again! Now the cat will enjoy a day in the tropics. Annie imagines a polar bear pointing at a crumbling iceberg and growling to its cubs, ‘It’s all her fault.’, then she thinks about her energy bills for the last quarter and starts wailing herself.
9.33am
Red in the face and only slightly out of breath Annie settles behind her desk. The to-do-list for today is 10 miles long and she still feels bad about forgetting the heating. The homeless polar bears. And not brushing the Twins’ teeth. Nor her own for that matter.
10am
Eureka! Annie checks her phone and remembers that yesterday a friendly engineer installed the Hive. It took about an hour to set everything up and now she can control her heating and hot water from her phone. It still takes some getting used to and remembering so she quickly adjusts the temperature on the phone and starts ticking off her tasks for the day.
9pm
With the Twins in bed and the other half ordering pizzas, Annie relaxes in a bubble bath. It feels amazing to come to a cosy home and have the hot water ready for the Twins’ daily soak. No more stomping around the arctic rooms and waiting forever for the rooms to warm up. No more rocketing bills. All thanks to Hive.
The End
P.S. Now she only needs an efficient control system for her memory… but that is a completely different story.

The useful stuff:

total cost of Hive Active Heating™ is £199
you get a state of the art wireless thermostat, receiver and hub
you can enjoy a free app and online dashboard to remotely control your heating and hot water via phone, tablet and laptop
all installed by a British Gas engineer (installation is worth £80)
no need to switch the energy supplier as it works work with your existing heating system = no hassle
no more heating an empty house could save you up to £150 a year on energy bills
it comes with a nifty Frost Protection feature that automatically activates when the temperature dips below 5°C so it helps protect your pipes from freezing
it is good for the environment, polar bears, your energy bills and bees