Money and Wigmore

Posted on 2008/04/20 11:15:59 (April 2008).

[Saturday 12th April]
When I'd left Japan back in December 2006 I still had some money in the bank there, but at the time the exchange rate was pretty awful, so I had decided to just leave it for the time being. Conveniently my most recent trip to Japan coincided with a much more favourable exchange rate, and so on my return to the UK a couple of weeks ago I had brought back some Japanese Yen. So today I set about changing this into pounds in order to pay into my account. Chie, having researched this fairly extensively in the past, recommended Marks and Spencer for currency exchange - their rates certainly seemed to beat all the other bureau de change we saw in central London (although that probably isn't too hard). I was also pleased to discover that banks do actually seem to open on Saturday afternoons these days (for some reason I had remembered them closing at lunchtime). So I had a definite sense of satisfaction on getting this little errand out of the way.

Other than that we did a bit of shopping, including a wander around Selfridge's. Chie's birthday is approaching and as my bonus is burning a whole in my bank account I'd like to really splash out a bit this year. So we took a look at Stella McCartney's little boutique in Selfridge's. I particularly approve of Stella given that, coming from a famously vegetarian family, she doesn't use any leather in the things she makes - there does usually seem to be an irritating correlation between luxury goods and dead cows. They didn't have anything that particularly grabbed us there today, but we'll keep looking.

We'd bought some Wigmore cheese at Selfridge's, which formed the starter for tonight's dinner. To be honest I was a bit disappointed. We'd had Wigmore before, a few years back, and it had been one of the best cheeses I had ever tasted. It was sweet, fragrant and really rich. This time it didn't really taste anything like that. I think part of the reason is that it may have been left to mature for longer - possibly at Selfridge's - and following that horrible experience last year I really don't have a taste for "ripe" cheese. Oh well.

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