Scottish Country Dance of the Day

Does your cat wreak havoc in your home?  Do you have a particularly curious or mischieveous kitty?   If so, you and your cat may enjoy some retro Disney film watching of That Darn Cat! a 1965 American Walt Disney Productions thriller comedy film starring Hayley Mills (in her last of the six films she made for the Walt Disney Studios) and Dean Jones (starring in his first film for Disney) in a story about bank robbers, a kidnapping and a mischievous cat. The film debuted December 2, 1965 and was based on the 1963 novel Undercover Cat.

The title song was written by the Sherman Brothers and sung by Bobby Darin and if not for the excess syllables, and more difficult rhyming scheme, might have been named "That Ecclefechan Feline."

Ecclefechan (Scottish Gaelic: Eaglais Fheichein]) is a small village in the south of Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway.  The village is the birthplace of poet Thomas Carlyle, who, along with other Scottish literary figures including Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, loved cats!

Carlyle had a soot-black kitten who begged tidbits from him at the table and ate them on the floor to the annoyance of Mrs. Carlyle who, during an absence, and clearly exasperated, wroteto her maid, Jessie: “As long as she attends Mr. C. at meals (and she doesn’t care a sheaf of tobacco for him at any other time) so long will Mr. C. continue to give her bits of meat and driblets of milk, to the ruination of the carpets and hearthrugs.” 

Local delicacies includes the Ecclefechan Tart (a butter tart)  and a blended Scotch whisky called "The Fechan" whose label denotes the Arched House, which gained local notoriety with the tag line "Gie us The Fechan whisky".

If a cat has been giving you trouble, soothe yourself with a classic Ecclefechan Tart.  Click the miniature tarts for the recipe!