Hvidøre

In a seaside suburb called Klampenborg, just north of Copenhagen city centre, is a beautiful white building.  A long time ago, it used to belong to Empress Dowager Dagmar of Russia.  

Hvidøre on a grey day

In fact, it used to be a palace with views of Øresund between Denmark and Sweden.  It has a long history.   Since as early as the 16th century, before it was rebuilt in its current form, it had a host of royal residents.  The building was demolished and rebuilt in the 1870s and then purchased by King Christian IX’s daughters, Queen Alexandra of England and her sister, Dagmar.  They lived there each year between September and November, until the outbreak of the first world war, when travel became too difficult.  And, at the time of the Russian Revolution, Dagmar escaped Russia, and Hvidøre became her home until her death in 1928.  

Today, it is used as a training facility and conference centre for a pharmaceutical company.    

In spite of its corporate associations, we can enter the charm of Hvidøre and meet my friend, who truly is the current ‘Dagmar’.  

Kirsten is an artist.  She paints vibrant, colourful and dynamic paintings of flowers.  I told her that one day, her paintings may hang in Louisiana (modern art museum in Copenhagen).  I hope so.  They represent so much joy, positivity, expansive energy and delight. 

Dagmar’s daughter, Grand Duchess Olga, also moved into Hvidøre with her husband and two sons; and she, too, used to be an artist.  Some of her work currently hangs in the reception rooms there.

Kirsten is working from the inside out to transform her colleagues into artists....and she is succeeding.  I assisted in one of her team building art workshops a couple of years ago.  We got dressed in what looked like space suits - white disposable overalls and shoe coverings and transformed a large meeting room into an art studio by laying out huge tarpaulins.  She instructed her workshop participants to create art any which way, using paint guns, hands, sponges and paint brushes of all sizes.  And they had a ball, and they created beautiful art.  Many tell her afterwards that she has inspired them to paint and draw at home.

Hvidøre is like a fine hotel and training facility rolled into one.  It has a top class kitchen staffed by some of the nicest men I know who prepare delicious haute cuisine.  It is one of the best dining experiences in Copenhagen - everything is made on-site, trips are regularly made abroad to gather inspiration and if you wanted a snack in the middle of the night, one of the chefs will make it for you.    It accommodates overseas staff on business trips to Denmark as well as participants who attend training held on-site.  

So while Kirsten provides historical tours of the property and graciously greets and takes care of these visitors, she is on a mission.  In her spare time, she paints and exhibits her work publicly, whilst in her paid job, she looks after Hvidøre and runs art workshops within the organisation on the pretext of team-building.  

When I visited her recently in August, I was lucky because we had Hvidøre to ourselves -there were no guests and the kitchen staff had left for the day.  She welcomed me as if she  was the lady of the house.  

Kirsten in front of one of  Grand Duchess Olga's paintings 

In spite of Hvidøre’s royal history and its current role in meeting the needs of its guests, it is like a big old house, admittedly with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and a beautiful grand piano in one of the drawing rooms, but the furniture isn’t over the top.  It has a nice mixture of modern Danish design and more traditional European furniture.  It has a warm and welcoming ambience that lacks the stuffiness and mustiness of European castles and palaces.  It is small enough that it feels like a house and Kirsten loves it like it is her own home.  

Very soon, she is going to St Petersburg on a business trip to do further research into Hvidøre’s royal history.  No doubt she will take her engaging and vibrant self, much like her flowers, to Russia, where she will attempt to weave the past and the present together and most likely inspire artists and art lovers in those she encounters.

Kirsten's website:
http://kirstenoergaard.dk/wordpress/

Mouse in the House

I saw something dart under the refrigerator....oh my God...it was a mouse.  And, I felt responsible  - I had had the garden doors open after insisting to Angela, my host, that I would help her prune and tidy up her garden that had become a jungle.  And now I had somehow let a mouse in.

I shut the kitchen door hoping that the mouse would stay under the fridge for the night, and I would not be woken up by something running across me as I went to sleep on the couch in the living room next door.

The next morning, I had forgotten about it, and as I was enjoying an unusual lay in, I got up to have a drink and I saw this tiny thing now sitting on the floor across from me.  It had moved from the kitchen into the living room.

How do you catch a mouse in someone else’s house when you don’t know where anything is?  

I opened the garden door again and came back to find it still sitting where it had been.  I decided to ask it to leave.  I explained how the garden was much nicer and that it would be much happier outside.  I told it that we really couldn’t keep it inside.  It just looked at me and then darted behind the cupboard.  

I thought if I could trap it in under a box or a tin, I would be able to contain it, and started taking everything off the floor - cushions, sewing machine, chairs and bags in readiness for the sudden assault I anticipated having to make to catch it before it ran away again.  Now I had everything on the table apart from the mini trampoline I found standing against the wall.  That was not going to fit on top of the table.  The mouse kept darting out from behind the cupboard but every time I moved, it went back into hiding.

Now all I had to do was find a box or a tin but no luck.  And then I lost sight of the mouse.  

So now I was worried it would find its way into my suitcase, clothing, papers, etc.  I proceeded to get all of my stuff off the floor, including my suitcase which was now perched on top of my bed.  And then I saw it again, as it scurried under the piano, this time a lot closer to my bed.  I never thought I would be on my hands and knees in my pyjamas looking for a mouse after having turned my host’s living room upside down.  Lucky she wouldn’t be home for several hours.  

Four hours later, the living room is back in order but the mouse is still at large....