Visit with Inger and Otto on the island of Fur

After a quick breakfast I said good-bye to Grethe and Evan and thanked them for the great birthday party and headed for the island of Fur. I had to drive through Thisted and suddenly I was stopped due to a procession of horses and fancy horse drawn coaches. It turned out that the Danish Queen, Margrethe, and her concort Prince Henri were visiting the city. Their ship was anchored in the harbour and they had been picked up by the city's mayor and were now on their way to some luncheon function! I was a only three meters from the coach and when the Queen saw me she waved and shouted, "Hi, Niels!" She remembered me from their visit to Vancouver in 1969??!!! She is the World's most popular queen and all the Danes just love her. Soon I arrived at the ferry to take me over to the small island of Fur where my best friend, Otto and his wife, Inger, live. The trip on the ferry is only about 10 minutes and you arrive on island that has not changed much in the last 100 years. Otto designed and built the house himself and it was planned to be their "summer cottage" for holidays and week-end while they were still living in Ikast. Well, they sold their home in Ikast and bought a condominium in Benalmádena just south of Malaga in Spain about two years ago. They now use their home on Fur from May till October and the rest of the year enjoying the sunny weather and mild climate of Southern Spain. Vera and I visited them in Spain in March this year and it is a gorgeous place to live. The house Otto built is just the most impressive home I have seen in a long time. Otto, who lived in Canada for more than three years, used all his knowledge about Canadian wooden structures and built it accordingly. The quality is outstanding and the design is unique. It is situated on top of a hill on a large piece of property and it has a sundeck running around the house on all sides. With the large windows you feel part of nature when sitting inside. The have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, great kitchen, dining room and a very large living room. There is even a sauna in the house. Otto is very talented and very energetic -- just think how far he could have gone had he stayed in Canada??!! Inger, of course as usual, had prepared a great dinner and with that plenty of Spanish wine, of course, Inger and Otto are now Spanish citizens. We spent the rest of the evening talking about "old times" and our summers in Lendrup, where his parents and mine had neighbouring summer cottages back in the fifties!!!!

Sep 7, 2009

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