Ani’s Advent Calendar 2018! Favourite things with Carol Balawyder’s Bau

Posted on December 23, 2018 by Sue Vincent

Snowballs and turkey, and nice handsome poodles,

Maybe a chicken fried up with some noodles,

Tennis balls flying like birds on the wing….

These are a few of my favourite things.

Old cheddar cheeses with sausage and bacon,

Walks in the morning when rabbits are waking,

Cuddles and snuggles, earplugs when she sings…

These are a few of my favourite things.

When the flea bites,

When the vets write,

When the weather’s bad…

I simply indulge in my favourite things

To stop me from going mad….

Everyone is singing lately… I like singing, must be my Dad’s genes. Just wish she wouldn’t do it quite as much though. She’s not exactly tuneful…

Wonder if Bau can sing?

Letter from Bau

 

Dear Ani,

I hope that I am not too late in being able to post on your advent calendar. Really, all I want is to wish you and all your friends and family a fun holiday. I love Christmas time. There’s always a party or two to go to and I love all the attention I get at these get-togethers. That’s my favorite thing. My other favorite thing concerns food. The best person to hang around is a one or two year old child. They’re always dropping their food. Or old people are always good. They don’t believe in all this nonsense that a dog must not eat human food. I love carrots. They are my Favorite.

Oh, Boy! It’s Getting Close to Christmas! My favorite time of the year. That’s when humans place trayfuls of food on tables my height.

Anyway, Ani, I hope that you and everyone else has a holiday full of your favorite things.

Merry Christmas,
Bau

Carol BalawyderAbout Bau’s two-legs

My dad was born on a farm town in Rama, Saskatchewan and my mom in Montreal. I was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec but currently I live in Montreal. I first came to study Early Childhood Education at McGill. It was a lonely time for me. Away from home for the first time. My parents didn’t believe in summer camps.

I didn’t like teaching kindergarten. All that discipline and yelling and screaming all at once…no I had the book first…he hit me…Patty peed in her pants. So I went on to get a B.A. in Education so I could teach high school. My first teaching job was teaching poetry to a group of drop-outs who were no older than I was and even some of the boys in my class were my brother’s friends. It was weird. Teaching High School didn’t turn out to be the be all and end all of saving the world.

After that, I got a neat job teaching English as second language for this company run by a really old woman who let me do practically whatever I wanted. I got to create a lot in those years.

And then I needed to travel. I did some research at The British Museum Library on my own grant. It was on Alice in Wonderland. The real reason why I wanted to do this research was that I just wanted to read from the original Lewis Carroll manuscript. Man, did they ever survey that manuscript. You’d think I was taking out Russian spy material.

Fast forward. I went back to study Applied Linguistics at Concordia University in Montreal where I almost got an M.A. degree if it weren’t for this professor (Gosh I wish I could remember her name…she was ancient) who didn’t think that using music to teach a second language was cool to use with adults. Although, a year later she kind of got with it and delivered a speech at an ESL convention using my material! Really. Now, that’s not fair.

Okay, so bad things happen to good people. I write a few ESL books that sell fairly well. Maybe you’ve heard or even used some of them: Open For Business and Windows on Sci-Tech. These were under my married name Carol Ann Fournier.

So I have my Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame and now what?

Oh, I know… I want to write crime novels. But don’t I need some kind of credibility, like maybe having been a criminal myself or a detective (which really, really would have been super cool, if in my good old days they’d accepted women in the police force).

I went back to university to get a M.Sc. in criminology and then ended up teaching Police Technology and Corrections for eighteen years in a college in the north end of Montreal. How’s that for credibility?

In the meantime, I got divorced and found myself side tracking from crime writing and writing about dating. Horror!

Here I am, years later and too many dates to keep track of but with a collection of dating stories and a novel.

Now you know my sad story of how I became a writer. But wait, that’s not all. I’m only beginning.

Find and follow Carol Balawyder

Website   Amazon  Goodreads

Find Carol’s books on Amazon

Read D. G. Kaye’s five star review of Getting to Mr Right here

About Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent was a Yorkshire born writer, esoteric teacher and a Director of The Silent Eye. She was immersed in the Mysteries all her life. Sue maintained a popular blog and is co-author of The Mystical Hexagram with Dr G.M.Vasey. Sue lived in Buckinghamshire, having been stranded there due to an accident with a blindfold, a pin and a map. She had a lasting love-affair with the landscape of Albion, the hidden country of the heart. Sue  passed into spirit at the end of March 2021.
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52 Responses to Ani’s Advent Calendar 2018! Favourite things with Carol Balawyder’s Bau

  1. Marilyn Armstrong says:
    December 23, 2018 at 06:06

    Another great piece of doggish poetry!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  2. robbiesinspiration says:
    December 23, 2018 at 07:20

    A lovely Christmas message and a fun song. I love My Favourite Things.

    Like

    Reply
  3. ksbeth says:
    December 23, 2018 at 08:43

    i love the lyrics

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  5. Ritu says:
    December 23, 2018 at 09:22

    Aw Bau 😍 what a cutie!
    And Ani I love your favourite things version!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  7. pensitivity101 says:
    December 23, 2018 at 10:25

    My mummy sang this to my daddy, and he threatened to record it!!! Love it xxx Maggie

    Like

    Reply
  8. Mary Smith says:
    December 23, 2018 at 12:22

    Love the lyrics! And Ani’s the photos – she’s such an expressive dog. Carol has had a fascinating, fully packed life 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  9. Carol Balawyder says:
    December 23, 2018 at 12:45

    Thank you so much for this amusing post, Sue. I love your lyrics on My Favorite things. Very clever. 🙂

    Like

    Reply
  10. Carol Balawyder says:
    December 23, 2018 at 12:50

    Reblogged this on Carol Balawyder and commented:
    I wish all of you all Happy Holidays and a new year full of your favorite things.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  13. Darlene says:
    December 23, 2018 at 14:33

    Merry Christmas Bau and Ani, two cuties. Hope you both get lots of treats. Bow wow from Dot the dog.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  14. noelleg44 says:
    December 23, 2018 at 16:01

    Bau is a total cutie! But so are you Ani, and that poem was great – I sang it!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  15. Patty says:
    December 23, 2018 at 16:06

    Reblogged this on Campbells World and commented:
    Did the naughty girl’s name have to be Patty?
    And, of all the luck, her name was spelled like mine.
    Go check this wonderful post out right now!

    Like

    Reply
  16. Victoria Zigler (@VictoriaZigler) says:
    December 23, 2018 at 16:29

    Merry Christmas to you too, Bau. Nice letter. Also, love the song, Ani. Lots of licks, Lilie

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  17. Jill Weatherholt says:
    December 23, 2018 at 16:34

    Two cuties in one post! I loved this! Merry Christmas!🎄🎁

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  18. Dale says:
    December 23, 2018 at 16:42

    Love your lyrics to the classic song, Ani!

    And wow, Bau! I was born in Sherbrooke too. And my mom and dad live in Boucherville, on the south shore from Montreal. We are so close to each other.

    Hope you have a fantastic Christmas!

    Zeke (and Dale – she does have to type for me)

    Like

    Reply
  19. dgkaye says:
    December 23, 2018 at 20:00

    Sweet letter from Bau, and Ani, you’re quite the poet! ❤ xx

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  20. Carol Balawyder says:
    December 23, 2018 at 22:17

    You try? You have a talent, my dear! ❤

    Like

    Reply
  21. OIKOS™-Publishing says:
    December 24, 2018 at 08:13

    Merry Christmas to all! What a wonderful posting, from a soooo sweet new friend of Ani! Bau, i think with this famous red clothing your are really the star of the day. 🙂 Best wishes, Michael

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  22. macjam47 says:
    January 1, 2019 at 16:27

    What a wonderful story. I had to chuckle about the food comments, especially the one about one and two-year-olds. My grandpup loves following my 20-month-old granddaughter around when she has food. She is very sharing, giving the dog a bite and then taking a bite herself. LOL.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  23. Carol Balawyder says:
    January 2, 2019 at 21:37

    That must be so cute to see your granddaughter feeding your grandpup! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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