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.
I see my housekeeper has now secured “a nice lot of pegs.” For my part I cannot resist buying a basket, and I much regret that the old men who supplied “skips” and besoms are all dead and gone. There are still some small baskets about, left by Italian prisoners of war, but they are of a flimsy make and more suitable to hold oranges and figs than for use in this country.