Adventures Of An At Home Globetrotter

What a day I've had - and quite an exciting one. With my support worker, it doesn't matter how she plans it, but how I plan it.

First off all we went to the train station for our picnic. I've never been to a train station before. There were two men nearby cooking away for the restaurant, and there was a huge enormous tree with white willow flowers, and lots of benches where people can sit and wait for their lunch while waiting to catch a train. There was even an outdoor cafe, and a small wooden carving of a train housing lots of flowers.

And then, we went all the way to the 'Noisy Town', Golspie. First we went to Lindsey's, aka The Blue Peter Store, and guess what? I not only bought a wordsearch, but also some bubbles and some shades for in case my eyes get blinded by the hot sun. For in this weather, journeying around the country is like walking through a long, hot desert. And the best part about the wordsearch I got was it contained a wordsearch full of kids' shows - Babar, Binka, Boo, Softies, Oswald, Pingu, the Tweenies, and best of all.....BRUM!

The delusional little kid on four wheels had his own place on the wordsearch, but of course this book was talking about the terrible times he spent chasing things and causing a public disturbance. That's Series 3. The proper Brum is the one who always helps others and discovers new things about the community of friends he helps build - that was from the '90s. He loves that era, don't you?

#respectfor90sbrum

Anyway, our next stop was the charity shop. I wanted to buy a CD, but I couldn't decide what CD to buy. I wanted to get Now Christmas, but my support worker said Christmas was a long way away. So, I went looking for books to read - there were so many, I couldn't decide what to choose. So many choices, so little time. But finally, I chose a treasury of five minute stories as well as a Daisy novel and a Top Gear Search & Find book featuring Stig and lots of pop culture references.

While there I met this nice young woman named Amy, who was a bit silent most of the time, but we managed to bond through paying for my stuff. Then my support worker and I went for a little drive, and I took some selfies of me myself and I with my cool shades on. I felt like Rainbow Dash in her limosine!

And finally we went to the Spar to get a chocolate bar and something cool to drink. Of course the car was being a bit of a bully and pulled my shoe off, and then my music glitched out and halted most of the time, but somehow for some reason I managed to ask my support worker if I could have a moment of quiet, and I did. When we got in, it was different to how I last visited it.

Everything was in different places, and there was a barista at the far back of the shop. And guess what else? Galaxy Milk Chocolate drinks! Of course I chose the chocolate bar and the can of Coke, because there were fruity fizzy drinks in there, and Mum said fruity fizzy drinks can cause tooth decay.

Still, what a fun day out I've had! I hope I can go on another one again. Don't forget to write! (I meant postcards, not to my blog)

The Petal Garden Incident (Bill & Ben)

If you grew up in the UK during the early 2000s, chances are you caught an episode or two of Bill & Ben, the Cosgrove Hall-produced reboot of the 1950s classic. With its soft clay animation and endearingly gibberish-speaking flowerpot men, it was a staple of Children’s BBC—later CBeebies—for kids just beginning to form memories. But there’s one episode you’ve never seen. Not on TV, not online, and certainly not mentioned in official BBC archives. Internally at Cosgrove Hall, it had a name: The Petal Garden Incident.

According to ex-staff at Cosgrove Hall, the episode was the result of an internal experiment—one not meant for broadcast. The studio was experimenting with abstract, subconscious imagery and horror concepts for a new adult anthology series. Someone, allegedly a writer named "Stuart N.", jokingly pitched the idea of “Bill and Ben in purgatory,” playing off the idea that their garden world was too peaceful, too isolated.

The animators, under heavy production schedules and perhaps looking to blow off steam, decided to use the Bill & Ben models as a mockup for a psychological horror concept—never intended to be aired. But something went wrong. Very wrong. The footage was mistakenly catalogued as a rough cut for the actual show and included in early distribution reels for overseas broadcasters. The BBC caught it before airing, but test viewers in Norway and Japan were not so lucky.

The intro begins as usual. The tinkling music plays. The flowers sway. You hear the gentle narration: “Bill and Ben… the Flowerpot Men.” But in this version, something’s off.

The music is slower. Dragged out. Like it’s melting. The sky looks darker. There’s a sound—very faint at first—of a baby wailing. As the intro continues, the wailing grows louder. Sharper. Soon it’s not a baby at all, but a guttural, demonic moan. The flowers twist unnaturally toward the screen. The screen flashes with violent cuts—frames of something unrecognizable. Blood? Raw meat? A hospital room?

Then the colors invert. The entire screen floods with a deep, arterial red. The music cuts. All that’s left is the sound of panting. Not from Bill or Ben—but from something alive.

Without a title card, we cut to the garden—only it’s dim, suffocatingly grey. Bill and Ben are strapped to a crude wooden table, their clay arms tied with rough twine. Their mouths are sealed. No “flobbadob.”

Weed is standing over them. She doesn’t speak, but her leaves twitch in a rhythmic pattern—signalling, commanding. Pry the magpie flies in first, landing on Ben's chest. Then Boo, Whoops, Scamper, and finally Slowcoach arrive, surrounding the helpless flowerpot men.

They begin pulling. Slowly at first, then with increasing force. Bill’s left arm is yanked off, revealing not clay—but flesh. A squirming, bloodied human baby arm. The others work in sync, peeling away the clay skin until, lying on the table where Bill and Ben once were, are two writhing, shrieking real human babies. Their eyes blink open—and they look straight at the camera.

The scene cuts without warning to real-life footage. The ocean. Grey, stormy waves slamming against jagged rocks. Then, a cliffside. Handheld footage now. A baby, perhaps nine months old, crawls on all fours toward the edge of the cliff. There are no adult voices—just the sound of distant seagulls, and the wind.

Then the baby falls.

There is no music. Just a piercing scream—female, primal. The camera shakes violently, and the screen cuts to static.

We return to the garden one last time. The clay aesthetic is back—but it’s cruder. Bill and Ben, now baby-sized versions of themselves, sit huddled in the mud. They look up and smile weakly.

Then, from the cracks in the ground, come ants. Hundreds. Thousands. With sharp, exaggerated mandibles. They swarm the baby versions of Bill and Ben. There’s no screaming—just the quiet crunch of consumption. Clay limbs twitch, dissolve. The ants consume everything.

Fade to black.

The BBC never aired the episode. After a catastrophic test screening with an internal panel—including parents, psychologists, and executives—the footage was flagged and officially locked in the BBC’s content vault. Some even say it was physically destroyed.

But copies had already leaked. A Norwegian children's block aired it once by mistake before pulling the episode mid-broadcast. In Japan, it aired in full during an overnight block meant for preschoolers, prompting multiple complaints and a quiet apology from NHK. The episode became known in international broadcaster logs as “B&B-RedRend01”.

After the incident, Cosgrove Hall quietly dismantled the original Bill & Ben production team. When the BBC commissioned them again, it was to focus on simpler, gentler reboots. Their next task? A reboot of Andy Pandy—released in 2002 with muted pastels and slow, meditative pacing. There were no more experiments. No more “adult horror mockups.”

They never mentioned The Petal Garden Incident again.

But sometimes… when watching Bill & Ben reruns on old VHS tapes, the screen flickers red for just a single frame.