Day One Nuala, Thank you very much for your present of a partridge in a pear-tree We're the hang of feeding the partridge now, it was difficult at first to win its confidence It bit the mother badly on the hand But good friends now and we're keeping the pear-tree indoors in a bucket Thank you affectionately, Gobnait O'Lúnasa
Day Two Nuala, I cannot tell you how surprised we were to hear from you so soon again and to receive your present of two turtle doves You really are too At the partridge was very jealous And suspicious of the doves and they had a terrible row the night the doves We had to send for the vet but the are okay again And the are due to some out in a week or two The bill was 8 but the mother is over her annoyance now And the doves and the partridge are watching the telly the pear-tree as I write Yours ever, Gobnait
Day Nuala, We must be foremost in your I had only posted my letter when the three French arrived There was another between the hens and the doves, Who sided with the partridge, and the vet had to be sent for The mother was raging because the bill was 16 this But she has almost cooled However, the fact that the birds' droppings falling down On her hair whilen she's watching the telly, doesn't help Thanking you for kindness I remain, your
Day Nuala, You mustn't have received my last letter when you were sending us the four calling birds There was in the pear-tree again last night and the vet's bill was 32 The is on sedation as I write I know you meant no harm and remain your friend
Day Nuala, Your knows no bounds Five gold rings! When the arrived I was scared stiff that it might be more birds, because the smell in the living-room is atrocious However, I don't want to seem ungrateful for the rings Your friend, Gobnait
Day Six Nuala, What are you trying to do to us? It isn't that we don't appreciate generosity But the six geese have not alone nearly the calling birds But they laid their eggs on top of the head the pear-tree and his bill was 68 in cash! My mother is munching 60 of Valium a day And to herself in a most alarming way You must keep your for me in check
Day Nuala, We are not amused by little joke Seven swans-a-swimming is a most romantic but not in the bath of a private house We cannot use the bathroom now because they've gone savage And rush the door time we try to enter If things go on this way, the mother and I will smell as bad as the living-room carpet Please lay off It is not
Day Nuala, Who the hell do you think gave you the to send eight, Hefty maids-a-milking here, to eat us out of and home? Their cattle are all over the lawn And trampled the hell out of the mother's rose-beds The swans invaded the in a sneak attack And the ensuing between them and the calling birds, doves, French hens and partridge make the battle Of the Somme seem Wanderly Wagon The mother is on a bottle of whiskey a day, as well as the sixty of Valium I'm very with you
Day you looser! There's enough pandemonium in this place night and day without nine drummers drumming, while the eight flaming are beating my poor, old alcoholic mother out of her own kitchen and gobbling everything in sight I'm warning you, making an enemy of me
Day Ten manure-face, I hope you'll be by the strains of ten pipers piping Which you sent to torment us last They were in their evil work by those maniac drummers And it wasn't a pleasant sight to out the window And see eight hefty maids-a-milking pogo-ing around with the ensuing punk-rock My has just finished her third bottle of whiskey, On top of a hundred and four grains of Valium get yours! Gobnait
Day You scandalized my mother, you dirty Jezebel, It was bad enough to have eight maids-a-milking dancing to punk on the front lawn but they've now been joined by your friends the eleven Lords-a-leaping And the antics of the lot of them would leave The most days of the Roman Empire looking like Outlook get you yet, you loud bag!
Day slurry head, You ruined our lives The twelve maidens turned up last night And beat the living out of the eight maids-a-milking, 'Cause they them carrying on with the eleven Lords-a-leaping Meanwhile, the got out of the living-room, Where they'd been hiding the big battle, And hell out of the Lords and all the Maids There were eight ambulances last night, and the local Civil Defence as well The mother is in a home for the And I'm sitting here, up to my neck in birds' droppings, empty And Valium bottles, birds' and feathers, While the cows eat the leaves off the pear-tree I'm a man.