Sometimes you just have a bad day

Do you ever have one of those days that just gets on your nerves for no particular reason? Well yesterday was one such day.

I woke up, dressed and put my phone on charge for an hour as I normally do while I catch up on emails from my laptop. We had plans to spend the day in town shopping for Harry's birthday presents and were looking forward to a delicious lunch at Colonol Porters.

At 10:30am it was time to leave. I picked up my coat, bag and phone only to find that my phone had not been charging and I only had 25% battery left. Grrrr! I picked up my power bank and headed to the car to then find that my power bank cable had broken. Spending a day without my phone when I hadn't planned on it - especially as I wanted to take photos of lunch to blog about it did not put me in the best of fettles!

South Gosforth is closed at the moment so we had to divert from our usual route and travelled via the A1 only to find as soon as we joined the road, the traffic was nose to tail as there had been an accident. We crawled along the road at a snail's pace. I always stress when I need to take a day off and away from my laptop anyway as I can't help but think of all the work that awaits my return and I'll have to do in the evening instead. Thinking of this whilst sitting in a traffic jam is not the best way to spend my morning.

Once in town I plugged my phone into one of the free charger lockers at intu Eldon Square (thank god for them) and we managed a little bit of shopping. We popped into a mobile phone shop to ask about adding a phone to our account for Harry but the process seemed to take forever - it's never a case of just popping into somewhere anymore is it? There are sofas where you need to wait in a queue for an advisor and then they need to ring someone.......In my head I assumed we'd be in and out but instead I ended up leaving Steve to it as I was tired of waiting and popped to WH Smith for a browse instead.

Before we knew it, it was 1pm and we were starting to get pushed for time. At this point we were starving and I couldn't be bothered to walk all the way down to the Quayside. Steve was insistent though as had his heart set on Colonel Porters so we started walking. We got to Colonel Porters only to find it was closed. The doors were locked and there were no signs outside. I checked Social Media and they should have been open. They had even 'liked' Steve's Tweet about looking forward to lunch there. Urgh I can't stand restaurants with poor communication and dodgy opening hours! At this point, I was furious that we'd walked all this way when we were pushed for time for nothing and it was at this point that the heavens decided to open. It was a warm day when we left the house and I was only wearing a denim jacket. We walked back up to monument and were soaked by the time we got there.

Well, there was only one thing for it. I needed something to cheer me up and declared we were going to PorterHouse Butcher & Grill in Fenwick. I had a feeling they wouldn't let me down and they didn't. Steak at PorterHouse is of the highest quality and I splashed out £23 on a Sirloin. Spending money on myself usually gets me out of a grump so I wasn't bothered about the high price tag. The seating in the restaurant was comfortable, service was super speedy and my steak was the best I'd eaten in a long time. Worth spending a little extra on. Steak is cooked on a charcoal-fired Josper grill which really gives your steak a proper char-grilled taste - it's like it's been cooked on a proper BBQ only 100x better. Obviously, my steak was perfectly cooked and it was served with the best hipster fries (with parmesan and truffle oil which had been perfectly seasoned) and a range of mustards and sauces. Steve ordered the less expensive Steak & Eggs with HP Sauce (£14.50) which was equally as good. These aren't the best pictures as I was dying to just tuck in but I'm going to share them anyway to give you an idea of what to expect.

Sitting in Fenwick food hall and eating good food with Steve is definitely one of my happy places. We popped to the Ouseburn Coffee stand after lunch for a quick espresso before heading home and honestly, all was fine with the world again and my bad mood disappeared.

This day so could have continued badly so thanks to PorterHouse for changing my fortune. If you're getting frustrated with the crowds of Newcastle or would like to experience what I think is the best place for steak and fries in town, check out PorterHouse Grill in Fenwick Foodhall and you won't be disapoointed.

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