Today was a big day. Or rather the night was. For today, on a warm evening in Prague, I got to see a West Ham captain lift some silverware for the first time in 43 years.

It was glorious.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have lived long enough to see the last time that happened but that was 43 years and it’s a long time to wait for it to reoccur. I’d often wondered if I ever would see it again. In my heart I hoped, but in reality I thought it unlikely.

Of course, you’re probably thinking ‘Well, nice for you but why mention it on a grief blog?’

Well, one of the things that had been rattling around my head for some time was something to do with such an event as this. Thinking on it, I’m not actually sure if it had been a discussion I’d had with someone, or something I’d just thought to myself in one of those internal monologues you have when you spend too long on your own.

Regardless, the thought began because I used to hear people say of someone who had died that ‘I think about them every day’. I always wondered about that ‘once a day’ thing. Did they mean they thought of them continually during the day, that they thought about them once, however briefly, and that was it? Or was it simply a shorthand way of saying that the person concerned would never be forgotten? ‘Once a day’ would have seemed too often to me once, too little over the last five years.

The conversation I’d had about this was by way of the ‘old’ me talking to the new one. Back then I’d have said “Every day? Really? What about that day you went swimming with dolphins in the Seychelles? And (crucially here) what about that day your team won the cup and you were deliriously happy and dancing on the table – did you think of them that day?” (It says something about me that holidays and football were my go-to subjects to argue a point)

Now, while I’ve never swum with dolphins or been to the Seychelles, I’ve learned enough over the past five years to realise that events like that are the very times that you do think of the person that’s not there. I’ve noticed that when I’ve been places or seen things that I think are significant, I immediately talk to Gail in my head in much the same way I’d have done had she been with me. I know on occasion if no-one is within earshot I even do this out loud. “That was an amazing dinner” or “This is really beautiful, isn’t it, Pet?” I find I get an overwhelming sense of well-being when I do it too.

So it was gratifying when that 90th minute winner was scored, the stadium went crazy and I was hugging total strangers with tears in their eyes, there was a distinct period when – despite the mayhem – I thought “We’ve done it, Pet!” and I heard her say “My God, you’re going to be unbearable for months, aren’t you?”

It was a special moment.