Grandma's Pets

Grandma's Pets
 
My granda went away to sea
For many months on end
He'd travel on a fishing boat
With his brother and a friend

He used to write home regularly
And tell some quite tall tales
About being in a far-away place
When he was actually in Wales

Once they actually went to Africa
He wrote he was bringing Gran a pet
When he came home with a small cage
He'd brought her a marmoset

He opened up the cage
And up the curtains it did run
The curtains tore, granda laughed,
Grandma didn't think it fun

She said it had to go  
So to the pet shop Granda went
He returned without the Monkey
And to ‘Coventry’ he was sent

Granda apologised and said  
that he would compensate
Next day he bought Gran Tip,a cat
Bimbo, the budgie, feared its fate

He'd run up and down his ladder
And his cuttlefish he would gnaw
He took one look at Tip and thought
'I've not seen you before'

One day he pecked his bell so hard  
The clapper fell out onto the floor
No matter how much he pecked it
That bell would ring no more

Bimbo, I’d known since a little girl
He lived to a good age
I still remember that fateful day
I found him lifeless in his cage

Tip lived till he was seven
Many kittens he would father
Mrs Thomas would bang on the door
And get in a right lather

“Your Tip's been paying visits
To my precious tabby Pip.
If you don't keep him in
I'll see to it he has ‘the snip'”

After Tip came Ruff the dog
A cairn terrier with his papers
We would laugh so many times
At his little doggie capers

There were two unbuttered teacakes  
Sitting on a plate
Mum went to fetch the butter
She came back to an empty plate

Ruff was looking sheepish
Crumbs all around his chin
The cute expression on his furry face
I could swear it was a grin

We lost Ruff when he was eight
Poison in his canned dog food
If that had happened now
The manufacturer we'd have sued

Grandma put her foot down
And told Granda “No more pets”
She missed them all  
Well most of them
But not the marmoset