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WARS have been won and lost in less time, marriages started and finished, reputations made and destroyed.
For Chelsea, 43 days and 460 minutes of Premier League football have passed since Frank Lampard struck against Portsmouth, before they finally had another goal to celebrate.
Lampard's goal, scored in August, lifted Jose Mourinho's team to the top of the table.
Yesterday, Salomon Kalou's winner against Bolton Wanderers prevented them from slipping further behind in the title race.
While Manchester United and Arsenal had swaggered to victory, Chelsea had to grind out their familiar 1-0 win.
But, after kicking off in the unfamiliar position of ninth place, it was vital they did.
It was Chelsea's 1,500th league win. More significantly, it was Avram Grant's first.
Without the banned Didier Drogba, the way was paved for the return of the owner's favourite, Andriy Shevchenko.
But Grant surprisingly ignored him, and turned to Kalou as his lone striker.
It was another sign of the beleaguered Ukrainian's struggles and, perhaps, that even Roman Abramovich recognises the former European Footballer of the Year no longer deserves a place.
Shevchenko eventually appeared with a quarter of an hour remaining - to a chorus of 'what a waste of money' from the Bolton fans - but was strangely deployed as a left-sided midfielder.
His diminishing place in the pecking order had already become clear earlier, when Claudio Pizarro replaced Kalou, not him.
By then, however, the Ivorian had displayed the speed of thought and foot to score the decisive goal.
It came four minutes before half-time when he capitalised on a mix-up between Abdoulaye Meite and goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen, as both failed to deal with Florent Malouda's flick-on.
Reacting quickest, he lifted the ball over Jaaskelainen, held off Meite and fired his shot past Joey O'Brien, who was covering on his on the line.
It ensured, among other things, that Drogba's dismissal against Fulham was not as costly as it could have been.
At least with Lampard fit to return after a month on the sidelines, Chelsea could savour the sight of another of their talismen back on the pitch.
More significant, though, was the return of Ricardo Carvalho for his first Premier League game since August.
It was just his third of the season and Chelsea have won them all, underlining the importance of the Portuguese's defensive partnership with John Terry.
At a hostile Reebok Stadium, a ground where Chelsea are rare among visitors in regularly prospering, Terry and Carvalho demonstrated that is it not just Manchester United who can keep clean sheets.
Their wingers provided what creativity they had. The prominence of Joe Cole, restored to the team by Grant, is one achievement of the new manager.
His trickery led to Chelsea's first shot of note. He won a free kick that Bolton failed to clear, and Lampard drilled in a low effort that bounced back off Jaaskelainen.
With Bolton in feisty mood, Chelsea were grateful to Petr Cech for tipping away an Ivan Campo curler.
An even better save followed. With conspicuous ease, Nicolas Anelka strolled around Terry, leaving the masked man wrong-footed.
His attempt to slip the ball beyond Cech failed, however, as the Chelsea goalkeeper flew out to block.
If Chelsea threatened little in the second half, they did not need to.
Both Pizarro and Cole shot over but, though a second goal always appeared unlikely, it rarely looked necessary until the Bolton substitute Stelios Giannakopoulos clipped the bar.
Victory continued a Chelsea tradition of enjoying trips to Bolton.
In 1983, they avoided relegation to the third division here.
Without that, there might have been no Abramovich at the Bridge and, by extension, no Grant.
And in April 2005, under Mourinho, Chelsea clinched their first title for half a century at the Reebok Stadium.
Like the Portuguese, Grant can take happy memories back from Bolton.
stsports@sph.com.sg
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