What would I do with £50 to spend on a night in?

This set me thinking. What would I do with £50 to spend on a night in?  Well for a start we just do not go out very often here at Compost Mansions, anyway. With no close relatives to help with babysitting there wasn't really much scope for going out when Compostgirl was younger and now she is older we still don't go out. This is because usually by the time we have finished all the chores, put away the hens, fed the other animals and I have watered the plants and we have locked up the sheds and polytunel and garage, it is quite late, certainly too late to start primping and preening and getting ready to go out. We are also too tired, to be honest!

Personally I never really did the "going out" clubbing and suchlike even when I was younger, I used to go to pubs and gigs with friends or to the cinema now and then and when Compostman and I got together we used to go to jazz clubs quite a bit, before we moved to Compost Mansions and started a family. We used to mainly "go out" for weekends away with our racing car, competing all over the UK in Hill climbs and Sprints :-)

So, what would be an ideal "night in" for us, here, now?

I think it would have to be a night in, in the winter. The onset of darkness means we have to stop work outside so we finish the outside jobs by 6pm. It also means the wood burner will be alight and the house will be warm and cosy. The evening would probably be just us three but I could certainly extend it to embrace some friends coming over as well.

Ideally I would like a peaceful evening, with all of us happy and contented with the day and how it went, and none of us feeling sad or upset or unwell. I think a nice bottle of red wine for we adults to drink (Compostgirl could have a small taste, but she would have a soft drink of her choice as well), some tasty steaks to eat with home grown potatoes and vegetables, a decent bit of Stilton and biscuits to follow as afters (Compostgirl would prefer a chocolate based pudding so we shall provide that as well) and then a settle down, with cats on laps, to watch a DVD of a film we have not seen when it was first came out at the cinema (because we never get to go to see films when they first come out!)

So far as a family we have enjoyed some good films on our new ish TV, so maybe we would chose to watch something like "Life of Pi"  or "Brave" which have had good reviews as family viewing. Or maybe "The Hunger Games" as I like the book trilogy and Compostgirl is about to read the first one. We would also have some snack type food, crisps or a chocolate (or several!)  at some point.

Later on after Compostgirl has gone to bed the two of us might watch something we have recorded with a bit more of an adult content - "Broadchurch" maybe. We have lots of stuff to watch but finding the time to do so is the issue for us! Or I might do some crochet or patchwork and Compostman might read. 

An ideal night in would then end with us just going to bed and going to sleep. It would not end with cats bringing small dead mammals and disemboweling them all over the sitting room floor, or worse still bringing in small LIVE mammals and letting them go in the house so we spend the hour after our bedtime moving all the furniture to find the aforementioned small mammal, before it crawls off and dies under a bookshelf and we don't find it until the smell of decay becomes noticeable ( oh yes, this happens here. A lot.)

So, that is my ideal night in. It's really quite modest, I guess but it is filled with home and family and cats and love :-)  And if I had any money left over from that £50? I would buy some items with the money and give them to the local foodbank, so other people could benefit as well.

In fact if I was given the £50 I might just donate it all to a charity anyway because, to be honest, I don't really need it. I have a family I love, food enough, loving ( if strange and wayward) pets, a comfortable home and a (mostly) entertaining and enjoyable lifestyle. I could wish to have better health but apart from that, no, I don't really think I would change much at all :-)

What would be your ideal night in? What would you chose to do?