My journey to Barcelona did not start well. At 6:00pm on the Thursday evening, Easy Jet announced a delay to my flight and the England football fans who were my fellow travellers decided it would be a good idea to fill their new found free time with a stint at the bar. Two hours later I found myself at the back of the plane feeling very sorry for the cabin staff who had to deal with angry requests from middle aged and older men for yet more beer and wine to supplement the spirits they were drinking from bottles of duty free. My talk at the conference was to be on the health lifestyles of men in later life so I tried to think of different ways of bringing this experience into my presentation. Instead I spent most of the flight in a state of anxiety since there seemed to be every likelihood that we would be forced to land. I need not have worried since the cabin staff seemed to be used to it and remained remarkably in control of the situation.

We finally arrived safely and the next morning I picked up my conference pack from the University with the aim of going through the conference book. My heart sank however as the programme proved to be almost unreadable. Fortunately, I had been e-mailed the Research Committee on Sociology of Aging (RC11) programme in advance and our section was clearly laid out and well organised in one location in the centre of the city.

The programme covered a diverse range of topics with parallel sessions all of which were very well attended. I was struck not only by the excellence of the speakers but also by the quality of debate and discussion following the presentations. In particular, I thought the sessions presenting work from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and other surveys on inequalities in later life, intergenerational relations, social networks and retirement highlighted that scholars in our field are beginning to use longitudinal data in theoretically informed and innovative ways. Clearly the sociology of ageing is entering an exciting period of research as new opportunities arise to utilise and share different data sets.

The International Sociological Association (ISA) reception in the evening was lavish and it was fun to wander around bumping into old friends and to make new acquaintances. But I think the RC11 reception was more intimate and reflected the friendly and supportive atmosphere that pervaded the RC11 sessions. I was able to chill out on the Monday morning before my flight with a pleasant visit to Gaudi’s Parc Guell which I recommend to anyone who is fortunate enough to be visiting Barcelona in the future. This was, I think, another successful conference and particularly so for RC11, for which we have much to thank Andreas Hoff and the organising committee. The only down to the conference was the discovery that the University computers were infected with a virus so my memory stick has had to be replaced. Football fans permitting I am now looking forward to the RC11 programme at the ISA World Congress of Sociology in Gothenburg in 2010.

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