Bank Holiday Monday

Another morning shift today, and it was interesting to contrast the unusual quietness of a Bank Holiday Monday as I drove in from the village where I'm staying with the atmosphere at the venue where everything was happening much as it has for the last 2 weeks.  Later on, explaining to a couple of players who were waiting for a bus to go into Guildford, that they might be less frequent than usual as it was a holiday weekend, I was asked what event or whatever we were marking with this holiday!  This made me realise that I didn't really know - I don't think it commemorates anything in particular (does it?) but it made me realise afresh just how much we take things that happen our own country for granted on occasions.
After the morning stint in the Oasis of Silence, I manged to book the same room that we had last night, for tonight's Games Night which was brilliant.  I also arranged a buggy to transport things there from the Oasis - a local church youth organisation has very kindly and generously lent us games such as giant Jenga and giant Connect 4, as well as loads of board games plus both a Wii and PS4, so it would have taken many many trips for the 3 of us on duty during the afternoon and evening if we'd had to carry them by hand.
The rest of the day was spent visiting, and spending time at, the various training pitches, as well as the hotel where match officials are based.  It was good at one of the training pitches to meet a number of family members, and chat to them for a while - chaplaincy is for them too.  Later in the afternoon, I spent quite a long time with a volunteer who needed to talk about a difficult pastoral situation she finds herself in.
Having checked that everything was okay for the Games Night, I then headed home - and immediately became conscious of another aspect of Bank Holiday Mondays - lots of traffic heading home after days or weekends away!