Let’s face it: there’s nothing cute about winter in Liverpool
When there’s no snow, tacky Christmas lights just don’t comfort you on your way to a lecture in the wind and rain
Winter time should be a wonderland of snow, cosy festive jumpers and “winter is coming” jokes. An open fire should warm your hands when it’s frosty outside, and you can finally relax. Of course, none of this is true if you’re in Liverpool and you’re a student. It’s just cold and full of deadlines.
Firstly, there’s no rush to go outside to walk around in a winter wonderland, because instead of snow, it’s just rain, or hail if you’re super lucky. Unlike in some rural areas and distant childhood memories, Liverpool has created an invisible snow-proof bubble around us all. There will be no snowmen, snow-balls, and no snow-penises, so you can forget about having a snow-ball fight with your mates or posting a cute insta photo of you in your winter woolens in front of a frosty tree. The closest thing you’ll get is hail; painful, miserable hail instead of fluffy snowflakes. And whilst you can never predict the weather in any city in the UK, if it does snows it will definitely be when everyone has gone home for Christmas.
Forget about having a good hair day, because although there is no snow, there is of course just rain, and wind. The windiest part of Liverpool is also the nicest, but the waterfront views come with a cost during winter: wind. Maybe for a day, it’ll be calm, but the majority of the time it will sting your face, ruin your hair, and also ruin that selfie you wanted to take, no matter how good you looked before setting off. Also, walking to lectures takes enough effort as it is without being drenched and frozen in a constant dull drone of consistently shit weather.
Although you can’t control the weather, at least you can look forwards to getting warm and snug at home after a long hard day at uni (or maybe an hour) as well as the cold journey back. Then you realise you can’t warm your hands by the fire because student accommodation just has those tiny shitty heaters that make the room smell like burnt hair as they increase the temperature by 1°C after 3 hours of mechanical struggle. Desperately in need of some professional furnace repairs. If you do have real life adult radiators, you’re too stingy to have them on long enough to actually warm you up. You can’t roast a marshmallow over a ‘unite students’ box heater.
The worst thing about winter in Liverpool lurks within the city centre, and swarms like a plague – the shoppers. Crowds of people swarm around at all times of day, frantic Christmas shoppers (despite it being way too soon), slow people that hold up the street and test your patience, troublesome kids in groups that piss off everyone and hordes of people just getting in the way, making a ‘quick trip’ to town a 3 hour ordeal. Seriously though, why do people walk slowly and then just stop to take a picture of something like that weird heart-shaped lights Christmas tree in the centre, or to see if their equally as gormless friend is still following them, and then not expect you to be annoyed or to bump into them.
Another disappointing thing is the small and underwhelming “Christmas markets” opposite the train station, under the watchful eye of Shrek. It’s aesthetically pleasing up close, with the cute lights and homely shacks for the sellers, but there’s hardly anything there, especially compared to the likes of what Leeds and Manchester have to offer. It’s mainly food (no complaints there) and a few unaffordable things that you don’t want for yourself, let alone to give as a gift. And tacky Christmas lights around the city don’t really make you feel too festive – more like ripped off at the cheap efforts a ‘city of culture’ tried to make at this time of year.
Although Liverpool is a disappointment throughout these winter times, you can at least comfort yourself with the thought that you can go home for the holidays to our friends, family, free food and free laundry, and most importantly, free heating.