Christmas party 2021 - no, not that one!!

I mentioned at the beginning of the month that I had been to two Christmas parties, which had been held on consecutive days. They were two very different events, and the first – the British Guild of Beer Writers’ Annual Awards, was just that - an awards ceremony, rather than a party in the accepted definition of the word. Both were enjoyable in their own ways, but it is the second of these events that I want to write about here, in a little more detail.

My company’s Christmas dinner took place on the afternoon of Friday 3^rd December. It was the first, proper sit-down meal we had had in three years, because 2019’s event, was a buffet, rather than a more formal meal, and last year’s event didn’t take place, for obvious reasons. All agreed that whilst the buffet, get-together, held at the Greyhound in Charcott, had been enjoyable, with some excellent food and a good range of beers, the pub itself was more than a little crowded.

I’m right in saying that with just under 40 members of staff on our books, the cramped nature of a small country pub, did make it rather difficult to mingle.  So, with some semblance of normality appearing at the end of September (what happened there?), the decision was taken to return to the much larger Little Brown Jug pub, which is just over five minutes’ walk away from our office and factory in Chiddingstone Causeway.

During my 15-year stint with the firm, the Jug has hosted quite a few Christmas dinners on behalf of the company, so it seemed logical to return there. In the early days of my employment, the dinners were evening affairs, which saw spouses and/or significant others invited along. The company also paid for, and arranged taxis to transport the party-goers to and from the pub – a strange decision give there is a railway station (Penshurst), literally across the road from the pub.

As the company increased in size, such events became unviable, and the decision taken to return to a sit-down meal, for staff only, held from mid-afternoon onwards. This was fine with the vast majority of employees, and fine by me as well, given the Jug’s reputation for good, heart food. Not so fine has always been the pub's less than exciting beer range, which never seems to get out of second gear.

This is a minor gripe, and the other Friday was of no real importance to me, given the surfeit of different beers I’d enjoyed the previous evening. Friday is actually my day off, but I was quite happy to wander down to Tonbridge station and take the 13.01 train, for just two stops to Penshurst.  

If you are wondering why the station is called Penshurst, rather than Chiddingstone Causeway, it’s because the latter settlement grew up around the station, rather than the station coming to an existing village. When the rail line first opened in 1836, as part of the first London-Dover route, settlements along the route were of secondary importance. Although Penshurst is 2 miles away, it was the nearest village at the time – hence the name.

Due to the timings of the train, I was amongst the first to arrive, but given the beers I’d indulged in the previous evening, was in no hurry to start drinking again.  This continued to be the case as the afternoon gave way to evening.  As mentioned previously, the beer offering was a little disappointing. The Tonbridge beer had been taken of sale - cloudy, apparently.  This left Larkin’s Traditional – a bit of a staple around these parts, plus St Austell Tribute. I didn’t fancy either, so stuck to water, plus non-alcoholic ginger beer.

The food on the other hand was excellent. I tend to go for something different at these events, rather than stick with traditional turkey. After all I will get enough of that at home, over the Christmas period. So, with a starter of citrus cured salmon, a main of poached smoked haddock, Welsh Rarebit – served on a bed of spinach and creamy mash potato, and a dessert of apple and plum crumble, my meal was anything but Christmassy. It was extremely good though, and there was plenty of it.

Whether or not the party went ahead, was somewhat debatable, at the beginning of that week, given the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid. The consensus amongst management was the event should still take place, but the company would ask all attendees to take a lateral flow test, on the morning of the party. This was voluntary, rather than compulsory, and had little to do with Omicron.

The main reason was that having gone right through the pandemic, virtually unscathed, we had an outbreak of Covid amongst the workforce, some three weeks previously. Six members of staff were affected, all but one of whom had been double jabbed. The un-vaccinated individual was the person who initially shared the virus with the rest of her colleagues and was also the one who experienced the most severe illness.

We have since had a further two colleagues test positive, and again both these people were double vaccinated. Being of a certain age, I received my booster, three weeks ago, as did Mrs PBT’s, so with a flu vaccination a well, my left arm is starting to feel like pin cushion! I’m not really sure what to think, apart from two things. The first is that as society as a whole has opened up, following the lock-downs at the start of the year, people are mingling more. This affords more opportunity for the virus to spread.

The second point relates to waning immunity – something the scientists were aware of for quite some time. The fact that the fully vaccinated members of staff experienced relatively mild symptoms, whilst the unvaccinated individual was laid up in bed, is evidence that whilst the vaccines can’t always prevent infection, they can limit its severity AND make transmission far less likely. Because of that last point, we strongly suspect but, of course, can’t prove that the unvaccinated person was responsible for infecting the rest of her colleagues.

 Omicron too, now seems inadvertently linked to Christmas parties – ones which the government is still pretending didn’t happen. With the proverbial brown stuff, about to hit the fan, what better way to deflect criticism of the Prime Minister, than by calling a press conference and beefing up the anti-Covid measures. Strange times, indeed!!