I stayed in Oak House over the holidays and it was miserable

Fallowfield was a ghost town


Christmas. Supposedly the most wonderful time of the year.

Fairy lights don bedeck every sane person’s kitchen, the whole flat joins together to make a Christmas meal, an event nothing short of a Christmas miracle, and everyone believes deep down they too can achieve the exquisite vibrato of Mariah in “All I Want For Christmas.”

Surely, there was no room for sadness in all the Christmas magic?

While the vast majority of you skipped along home for a comfortable month of sofas, baths that you feel you truly can trust, and marveling at the warmth of your parent’s humble resplendent and glorious abodes, there were a few poor souls left in the ghost town that Fallowfield has become.

Those of us bound by the part time jobs we entered into so optimistically earlier this year, became stranded in the city that just lost its sparkle with no one around to share it with.

As one of the lonely few, here is how I filled my days, alone and abandoned in Fallowfield.

Going to the cinema

I went to see The Force Awakens, (Hans) solo.

Though the film itself has changed my life in ways that can only be good, the burning stares of the couples that surrounded me are now imprinted deeply within my very being.

The Christmas markets

A place transformed into stinging reminder of solitude upon the realisation there is no one around to share remarks with about the disgraceful pricing of the Christmas sausage.

My first ever trip to Whitworth Art Gallery

Now I was getting bored. Where the most riveting company I could find was something that can only be described as a ginormous, wooly dose of a stranger’s womanhood. Whether the said stranger was consenting to such indecent and aggressive exposure remains unknown.

I then found myself within Manchester Museum. Along with the entire Mancunian population of kids under five and mums with bags undeniably containing the standard wet wipe, fruity snack bar and paracetamol quotas for such family friendly holiday excursions.

And I’m sorry to be the bearer of news, but Spoons does lose its magic with no one to get steadily more sloshed with. Though I must say the opportunity to stare dramatically into my Strongbow as if it represented the bottomless pit that was now my soul did it excite me mildly.