On my recent trip from San Francisco to London (and back), I had 10 hours to kill. I was tempted by the prospect of taking a Zzzquil and waking up refreshed (if a little hungry), but in the end, I had a cocktail and wine with dinner and missed that elusive window (and then suffered the rest of the journey, kicking myself for not taking the Zzzquil and being so weak!).

To pass the time, I had a couple of go-to’s:

1. “The Crown,” the drama centered on Queen Elizabeth II’s earlier days is amazing. It is available for instant download on Netflix and I downloaded the entire season – just keep in mind that downloads do expire.

2. “Me Before You.” The romantic drama starring Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke and Ms. Claus (Janet McTeer from the recent Marks & Spencer commercials) was showing on the plane and it was good!

3. Other movies — the in flight entertainment on Virgin was actually plentiful (at least for someone like me). Ghostbusters, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Bad Moms … I overdosed on light entertainment. Also watched Sully, which was great.

Food was pretty scarce on the journey over and what I didn’t realize was that we needed to pre-order a kids’ meal for the kids (it isn’t automatic even though we purchased a child’s ticket). Instead, the kids had to choose from the adult menu (curry, pasta or lamb hot pot). Not great. On the way back, there were more options for food – a hot pasty a couple of hours after dinner, then a Fab ice cream bar, then afternoon tea.

Anyway, more on what we did after landing in London in my next blog post!