In about an hour and a half, I'm sitting on a bus on its way home. It leaves Oslo at 10:15 p.m. and arrives at home around eight tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow will be a day of strange, mixed feelings. I'm going to a cousin gathering, my father's side. We're 45 total, but a few won't be there, one of my brothers among them. (He, on the other hand, will be here in Oslo, on a national convention for driving instructors.)

Of the 40+ cousins of mine who will be present, I guess there must be about 20 I don't know at all (having maybe seen them a few times when I was very little), about 10 I haven't seen in at least 10 years, 5-10 I might have seen a few times during the same period and the rest will be my two brothers. I used to see more of them when I was younger and lived back home, but since I moved out, I have hardly seen any of them at all.

So it's going to be two interesting days. I'm fairly sure I will hate most of it, because I'm not very fond of family gatherings, and especially not when it's remote family. ("Remote" either in family relations or time ...) And I definitely hate that most other people will know who I am and I won't have a clue about *them*. I'm not too good at remembering such things, and besides, they have an advantage, since I'm among the youngest, and my father is one of the three (of a total 12) siblings living in my home village, and so naturally the others both meet and hear about *my* family more often than I hear about *theirs*. (Of course, I could ask more and make sure I remember somehow, but frankly, I'm not very interested, and for that I pay the price this weekend.)

I'm taking the overnight bus back, too, so depending on how much sleep I got, I might go from the buss and straight to wrok on Monday morning. I probably should. My sleeping pattern hasn't been too good lately.

Trav"spot the (deliberate) typo"holt