No, I haven’t gone crazy and started bee-keeping at the tail end of August. That would be the height of crazy behaviour. I have memories of trying to save a failing hive in August years ago, with frantic internet searching for a replacement Queen (which I found - phew!) who duly arrived in the post much to the trepidation of the delivery chap. I then had to enlist the help of my mum (whose party trick is to crush wasps to death with her bare hands) and put her in a waaaaaay too big bee suit so I could re-Queen the hive (it’s a two-person job) and it was all a bit frantic but it was done and the hive survived the Winter.
Nope, this hive is a piece of technology which will, apparently, make my life easier. It is a central heating hive which can be operated from my phone and/or i-Pad and will save me squinting in a confused way at the original boiler control panel in the laundry which, even after 6 years, continued to bemuse me what with it being totally incomprehensible.
Anyway, my little brother arrived yesterday with my nephew in order to conduct the Annual Boiler Service and, in addition, install the Hive. Every year, I say to my little brother, ‘I can always get a local engineer to service the boiler, you know - save you a 450 miles round trip from Kent.’ And every year, he says, ‘Nah, it’s a day out.’ And the form is that my nephew services the boiler whilst my little brother stands in the kitchen chatting.
Yesterday was a trickier kettle of heating fish, though. The Hive - ever so quick and easy to install - turned out not to be thusly so. Firstly, the app refused to accept that the code printed on the bottom of the Hive was an actual code. But what it REALLY was, was that the Hive didn’t like my i-Pad but it did like my phone. Next the app refused to acknowledge the existence of the thermostat, even though they were RIGHT next door to each other. I don’t know if this actually works, holding two appliances close together to make them acknowledge each other’s existence but it’s worth a shot. What DID work, though, was that trusty old favourite of switching it off and then switching it on again. Thank goodness we didn’t reach the other trusty old favourite which is ‘hitting it with a hammer.’
At one point, my little brother let out a strangulated grunt. ‘Are you okay?’ said I, thinking he was in some sort of pain. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘This thing,’ and he waved a dismissive had at the Hive. My nephew then chipped in cheerfully that their current record for getting a Hive to acknowledge a thermostat was 52 minutes. Modern technology, eh?
Eventually, the Hive was installed, I was given a crash course in how to use it and my little brother and my nephew went on their way with a warm lemon bun each.
I took Nell for a belated walk and stopped to chat to one of the ladies in the village who is 84 years old and, the previous day, underwent a grade three breast cancer tumour removal. Yet here she was, scooting around in her front garden in her dressing gown and being jolly cheerful about life. Apparently, she was supposed to have stayed in the hospital after what was a pretty major operation but they didn’t have any available beds. Absolutely appalling.
Anyway, came home, did some ironing. Took the ironing upstairs to put away and thought, ‘Blimey, it’s hot up here.’ The heating had come on! It had been set to 20 degrees which is way too hot for August. All it does is make August even hotter. But here was an opportunity for me to fiddle about with the new thermostat! And yea verily, ‘twas easy to use and I set the thermostat to 18 degrees.
This morning, the heating came on. The air temperature was 17.9 degrees. I think Hive may be a tad too sensitive. I think my life might not become THAT much easier. 🙄
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KJ