What do you do when you come face to face with a row of preening, chirruping, budgerigars? I'll tell you what I do.

"Who's a pretty boy?" I say. "Come on now, tell mummy who's a pretty boy. If you don't mummy's going to rattle your cage and go Miaow!"

"Stop it!" said The Mother. "Anyone would think you were a six year old child - and a badly behaved one at that."

We were standing in a pet shop and when you're standing in a pet shop you're obviously not shopping for a vacuum cleaner or thermal vests.

But you might well be looking for a rabbit, a gerbil, a tropical fish or a feathered friend. We were on the look out for the latter.

It all started when a friend (non-feathered variety) and I were sitting in the cinema last week. We were waiting for the start of a critically acclaimed, but deeply depressing, movie about life on a London council estate.

As we crunched our yoghurt-covered peanuts I told her that The Mother's birthday was looming and I was at a loss to know what to get her.

"Your mother's a very caring person, I think she needs something to cherish and love," said my friend.

"She's got me," I said.

"Yes, but you're not covered with fur or feathers and come to that, you're not all that loveable," said my so-called friend. "I think she needs something like a budgie - my mother's got three."

A budgie? Now that was an idea. I had a budgie when I was a child. He was called Bo-Bo and when, after four years, he quite literally fell off his perch, he was replaced by Binkie.

Binkie lasted but a few months, making a spectacular exit when he crash-landed on the curtain pelmet.

Budgies, if I remembered correctly, needed little care and attention. You didn't have to take them for walks, get them neutered or pay exorbitant premiums to insure them against illness or death.

Neither did you have to buy ridiculously priced cans of pet food or step over a litter tray by the back door every morning - before emptying it.

"A budgie?" said The Mother. "Oh, I don't know about that. Living things are always a responsibility and when I've gone who'll look after it?"

"Gone?" I said. "Are you going back to Yorkshire then?"

The subject of The Mother's mortality (and my own) crops up with increasing frequency as each birthday approaches and I was determined not to get embroiled in yet another discussion on the subject.

I phoned a pet shop the following morning. "Do we stock budgerigars?" said a voice. "Listen to this." In the background I heard much tweeting and twittering.

An hour later we were there, facing a flurry of raucous budgies, canaries and parakeets.

"What colour would you like?" I asked The Mother who was making little clucking sounds near the cages.

"Oh, I don't mind at all," she said. "Green would go nicely with the curtains though."

"How many do you reckon we should have?" I said. "I think one little bird all by itself would get very lonely."

"That's just what I was thinking," said The Mother. "I suppose we should get a pair, they could keep each other company when I'm not around.

"I mean," she added quickly seeing my expression, "when I've gone shopping or something."

"Don't they look happy, sitting there all together singing and whistling?" I said to The Mother.

She nodded. "I really couldn't bear to break them up, could you?" she replied.

"How about a pair of thermal vests?" I said.