I watched people bring their Christmas trees to the town council staff on the Market Place today. One staff member would snip off any awkward branches, and the other would plunge the tree into a hopper.

From out of the shredder, debris was blasted into a pile of wood chip and needles in the back of the council truck. It had been reduced back to basics which could be recycled as mulch.

There were others like me who stopped to watch, for a minute or two, what has become an annual ritual in Abingdon on Thames.

This year Christmas Tree recycling coincided with Twelfth Night – which is either the 5th or 6th of January, depending where you start counting from.