Singapore Swans and Penguins In Orchard Road, Fake, Fun and Real Creatures

I I saw two real white swans on the swan lake in Singapore's Botanical Gardens before I came across the large swan sculpture in the water.

A nearby plaque tells the story of the lake which was drained to remove a crocodile.

Earlier we had read another sign saying that you might be 'lucky' enough to see a monitor lizard, which, the sign reassures you, are timid and likely to retreat.

We saw a lizard about the size of a tall man's shoe. That was a fine size in my opinion. I do not want to meet a lizard which looks like a crocodile.

We took a taxi, actually a Grab, to Orchard Road. Penguins, models of penguins, were abundant.

Penguins and Igloo in Orchard Road. Angela on the left. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Australian 12 Days of Christmas | Christmas Songs For Children | Aussie ...

Australian version of Twelve days of Christmas. I found this on Wikipedia when I was researching all aspects of Christmas around the world including Christmas carols.

You can sing along, like karaoke, or copy down the words. The words appear in white on black at the bottom of the screen. You can also slide back the yellow oblong on the red line to repeat any part you want to hear again. Or leap to the end to twelve to hear/recap the song from 12 downwards.

1 An emu up a gum tree.
2 pink galahs
3 kookaburras l a u g h i n g.
4 k o a l a s  cuddling
5 kangaroos
6 brolgas dancing
7 possums playing
8 dingoes digging
9  wombats working
10 lizards leaping
11 numbats nagging
12 parrots prattling

I must admit I had to look up a couple of the creatures. A bralga is a crane, like a flamingo but not pink, just black and white with a touch of pinky red on the back of the neck.

A galah is a pink parrot, very common in Australia. You can keep them as pets and teach them to talk.  See videos on YouTube.

A numbat is a striped anteater.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker and author.

Wonderful Wines For Weddings, Romance & Surprise Novelties: Icewine For Valentine's Day, Wedding Wines, Cork Showing Klee; label with Dirdl

1 Squashed Wine Bottles Displaying Business Cards
The Austrian wine show at the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall, London showed Austria's latest wines and wine related gifts. Business address cards were displayed on a flattened bottle. You can buy these bottles and use them to serve cheese and biscuits with wine.

For a special occasion such as a wedding, anniversary, Valentine's Day, birthday, or birth of a baby, you can have your wine or champagne bottle flattened afterwards as a souvenir. I found flat-bottles.co.uk . Their charge in Feb 2014 from the website was £12+£9 postage for a bottle without label. (You remove your label and save it and stick it back afterwards.)  With labels £18 plus postage. They also do champagne and beer bottles. Other sellers offer bottles as olive trays or spoon rests, with a wine quote (old wine like old friends  better with age) and personalised. The bottle in my picture was at the Austrian wine trade show in London and was made for Weingut Hellmer by an Austrian company. I thought it was flattened by www.mth.com.at but I haven't yet found the website. The bottle itself is from Weingut Hellmer, www.winzer-hellmer.at office email office@winzer-helmmer.at tel:+43 (0)2738/3149

2 Ice Wine In Icicle Thin Bottles
I loved the ultra sweet ice wines which have to be picked at night when the weather is icy, sold in a bottle slim as an icicle. I first found this delicious wine in New Zealand, then in Canada, and did not realise it was closer to home in Europe, from Austria. My favourite eisweins were by Lang; and by Zantho whose bottle labels feature the winery's local lizard.

 Lizard Logos On Bottles Of Sweet wine - how sweet!

For the lizard logo on bottles of ice wine www.zantho.com

3 Dirndl Dress On Labels
Wandering through the show was a girl wearing a wonderful iridescent skirt. The same outfit, a folk fashion of Eastern Austria, is worn by the girl pictured on bottles of wine. The Dirndl dress has a laced corset-style bodice, a full circular skirt, and often a white puff sleeve blouse, skirt lengths varying from knee length to ankle length. You can buy these dresses in various colours for girls of all ages from babies to brides up to grannies, and co-ordinating lederhosen for boys and granddads too.

This wine with its wonderful label is brand new, so they are looking for importers to the UK. If you want to buy a dirndl dress, google dirndl or Salzburger dirndl. The pretty dirndl dress featured in the film Sound of Music so many little girls would love to have one. I met Bianca, above, the daughter-in-law of the people who run the winery.

More details of the wines from www.schmelzweine.at

info@schmelzweine

t:+43 (2715) 2435. 

4 Klee Paintings on Corks & Labels
Another novelty is a portrait from a Klee painting on a cork. Klee was an Austrian painter. The whole painting is shown on a wine label.

For the klee labels and corks check out wwww.szigeti.at

5 New Baby Bottles With Hearts and Keys For Valentine's Day and Weddings
The same company makes miniature bottles, the smallest bottles in the world, holding just a glassful of wine, 125 cl, with trinkets around the bottle neck as gifts. You can have little hearts or keys. Or anything you want to order. The bottles come in conventional colours or silver.

More Details From:

For the bubbly bomb baby bottles, with Bubbly Bomb Vienna designs, Bubbly Bomb Christmas Designs, Bubbly Bomb Wedding Designs - www.szigeti.at

You can buy the bubble bottles from Selfridges, Conran, the British Library or from the producers' website. They specialise in sparkling wines. The bottles with the hearts and keys cost about £8.99, while the ones with silver bottles and pink ribbon are about £12.99.

www.austrianwine.com

For anybody in the trade some more details:

Szigeti, Am Anger 31, 7122 Gols

T: +43 (2173) 2167 F: +43 173) 2514

E:sektkellerei@szigeti.at

W:www.szigeti.at

Contact: Hans-Peter Hofmann

Importer Grays & Feather Ltd.

Haider & Malloth make little lightweight glassy coloured printed papers to go under glasses (in German Glasuntersetzer) Vol.1.

They also double as circular business cards for their marketing staff:

Christopher Malloth MSc, marketing und Sales, Haider & Malloth OG, Am Schrandlsee 2, 7142 Illmitz, Austria.

www.weingut-haider-malloth.at

tel:+43 1 512 29 90-0

More details from:

Facebook: www.austrianwine.com/facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/austrianwine

Austrian Wine Marketing Board

www.austrianwine.com

Visit their Webshop shop.oesterreichwein.at

info@austrianwine.com

Next year I hope to go back to their trade show and taste the other sweet wines I missed by wineries: Fritsch; Haider & Malloth Weinkellerei OG; Etz; and Weubrueder

WINE QUOTATIONS

Finally a few quotations on wine:

A glass of wine and thou.

Drink, drink, drink. (Drinking song.)

In vino veritas.

In victory you deserve it; in defeat you need it. (Napoleon on Champagne.) 

Wine, women and song.

Angela Lansbury is the author of Quick Quotations which you can buy on line from lulu.com