Damn, it seems harder this year?
I hefted the one-sided Scottish shovel called a Shatoosh onto my shoulder and let out a big sigh. My breath hung in a silvery grey cloud in the frigid morning air.
Big Boaby Bumlick stopped hacking away at the muddy sod of earth in front of him and turned a gnarled eye my way.
Aye, the diggin never gits easier. That's fur shoor.
He had no teeth, Big Boaby Bumlick, which made him sound like a cut-rate Sean Connery.
He was a massive slab of a man. All highland ancestry and hair. He looked a fine sight in his kilt with his Shatoosh casually held to the side as if it weighed less than nothing.
We were standing at the muddy bottom of the local Peat Mine. It was almost the end of the year and it was the traditional time for every Scotsman to cut himself a yard of Peat and take it home to his wife so that she could make Whisky out of it to drink during Hogmanay.
It was said by the old Sea Wives that a Scotsman who could cut a yard nae mare would awaken the next day as a cow in a field full of randy Englishmen.
I shuddered at the thought and hefted my Shatoosh up and started chopping at the sodden earth wall before me again.
We're not making whisky with our peat this year.
The words hung in the air like an awkward gazelle realising it can't fly.
I snapped around to fix Big Boaby Bumlick with a look.
You could never say we were close but we had been digging peat together for the Hogmanay whisky for years. Still, I was surprised he would say something as blasphemous as this to me, a fellow Scot.
The big galoot.
What are you going to do, make a hat out of it? Behave yourself man, of course you are going to make Whisky out of it.
I growled low in my throat and leant on my Shatoosh.
No, not this year.
Big Boab also leaned on his Shatoosh and glared at me defiantly.
You know me and Moira, we have been wanting children for years but we haven't been lucky. Well. Tonight is going to be the night. We are going to flatten out the peat and shag on top of it. A wise woman told Moira that she would conceive tonight if we shagged on the peat.
He looked relieved to have told me.
Well, a shag is a shag I suppose.
I looked off into the distance, trying to remember the days of shagging.
I'm hoping we will have a boy.
Big Boab grimaced as he turned back to the peat cutting, his Shatoosh unearthing a thick and fetid looking length of peaty brown muck. Wth a grunt of satisfaction he cut himself a rancid looking length and held it up victoriously in his hand.
I too had struck a seam of the brown gold and hefted out a brackish length of peat. I held it up to the grey morning light.
It was a fine one, like Chewbacca's arm.
My face broke apart into a big beaming grin. I'll get some good whisky out of this one. I thought to myself
A boy you say... What are you gonna call it?
I asked in the way of men who don't really give a hoot about children but feel obligated to ask.
Big Boaby Bumlick smiled at me wryly.
What are we gonna call him...?
He paused, then smiled even more broadly before continuing.
Pete, of course.
Pete?
Aye, Pete!
We both threw our heads back and laughed at the folly of Scotsmen and then laughed harder at the folly of those men who were not Scottish.
Then we departed, each of us clutching a yard of peat and hopeful for the year to come.
Happy New Year!