Ella's culinary exploration of San Francisco continued this week with a visit to the Arizmendi Bakery, home of the wonderful "Chocolate Thing" (a kind of bread roll with chocolate chips). Her godmother Anna came to stay, so we all went to Preston Vineyards for a foodie picnic. Ella played with several little people this week, but she misses her friends back in London. So she has created an imaginary friend. Because Ella is, of course, Peter Pan, her imaginary friend is an invisible version of herself: Invisible Ella, who follows her everywhere (and is hugging Ella, below left). With only a week until her third birthday, Ella has a new plan to avoid getting older: she wants a cake with no candles on it, because she will only get older if she blows out the candles.

Now over to Ella...

"Invisible Ella (top left) always comes in boats with me, and in sand. She looks like me. She's a talking baby who's invisible, so you can't see her. I took a picture of her one day. She likes to eat calamari like me. She's zero. She says 'Ella, please may I go in the boat,' and I say yes. People in Neverland stay the same. They don't grow up and not die and don't have any birthdays, too. I don't want to grow up. I won't be any olds (age). How electrissapy works is that is spills through the fire bit. That's where you get out of the Muni when there's a fire and then run away! Then it works." (This is Ella's theory about how the Muni electric buses work. The electricity, she notes, flows into the bus via arms on the roof, near the emergency exit.)