IT'S Mistletoe Time in Tenbury Wells - and kissing under it could be cheaper this Christmas if forecasts are any thing to go by.

According to expert mistletoe man Stanley Yapp, it's a bumper crop this year, with some of the finest coming from his own orchards above Cinders Lane, St Michael's.

Much of the holly and mistletoe gathered from across the region goes under the hammer at Brightwells famed winter sales at Tenbury Cattle market at the end of the month.

The popular sales have been going strong since Victorian times and growers from Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucest-ershire put some of the finest winter greenery in the country up for sale at Brightwells.

Prices are expected to settle at around 50p to 75p per pound for most customers.

Some 3,000 lots of mistletoe in a variety of sizes will up for sale and enquiries are coming in from buyers for major supermarket chains, garden centres and the smaller retail outlets across Britain.

Auctioneer Nick Champion said: "It is impossible for us to weigh up the amount we sell. We have had a particularly good summer and the crop should be a good one. We don't expect prices of the mistletoe to have increased too much, and the cost of holly could be around £1 per pound, about the same as in recent years."

Over the years, window dressers from some of the most famous department stores in the country, including Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Fortnum and Masons and the John Lewis partnership have travelled to Tenbury Wells to buy the traditional seasonal greenery for their window displays.

Two or three years ago it was rumoured that Madonna, keen to have the real thing to decorate her new English home, made enquires after reading a feature in an up- market country magazine.

Sale days this year are November 25, and December 2 and 9 at Brightwells Cattle Market in Teme Street, Tenbury Wells. For more information contact 01584 810666.