Gypsies bring mistletoe and berried holly into town: Country diary, 19 December 1946

19 December 1946: A Gypsy has also been selling white wooden clothes pegs and doubtless their good wishes will prevail with my housekeeper

Hereford
The following I read in an old letter written by a woman who had been on a visit to Herefordshire: I drank mulled cider in a dunce's cap, to push deep inside the fire - (a pipkin is meant: I have a copper one that lives in a little square recess in the wall by the great fireplace) - with spoons of honey in it and a lump of butter out of a lustre basin." She writes of apple-must kept after the cider has been extracted and used to bank up a fire like peat. She also writes of Gypsies' huts. A hollow was made in the ground and a wall of turf built in a circle. There was a hole in the roof to let out smoke and grass grew on the roof."

There are still lots of Gypsies about; I saw some driving a load of mistletoe and berried holly into town" and a Gypsy has just been to the door selling white wooden clothes pegs; they have much the appearance of a belt of cartridges. We do not need clothes pegs, but doubtless the Gypsy's good wishes will prevail with my housekeeper, together with the offer to sell a large quantity at a cheap rate.