Digging

Here's Elliott with his favourite dance class friend Lucca at The Spring Gardens, a verdant inner-city oasis where 180 families from the surrounding neighbourhood grow produce. It has a lovely view of Philadelphia's skyline and covers an entire city block: an expanse of plots at each end and, in between, open space shaded by communal sour cherry trees.

Emergency!

Nobody luckier than little Elliott today, except perhaps the cat rescued from this Walnut St fire and revived with an oxygen mask. After four Philadelphia Fire Department ladder trucks zoomed past our window, we set out in search of the action (old habits...) and found it but a few blocks away. Master E was enthralled by the spectacle: more than a dozen big red trucks, firemen galore and smoke billowing from an apartment building.

Dazzling Diggers

Here's Elliott mesmerised by another of his second birthday presents, this one from his grown-up friend Maya and baby Amela. Dazzling Diggers is one of 10 books in his new and already much-loved Amazing Machines set, which also features such little-boy-friendly fare as trains, trucks, tractors, rockets and submarines. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a gift for a young things-that-go enthusiast.

Feeding the ducks

Philadelphia Zoo is home to more than 1300 animals, most of them exotic, rare and endangered. Elliott likes to see them all... after he's fed the ducks.

Lucca's truck

Here's Elliott with the other truck borrowed from dance class friend Lucca. Press a button and it zooms off. Endlessly fascinating!

Fire engines

Elliott's very sweet friend Lucca, aged 4, kindly let Elliott borrow his fire engine and dump truck after their playdate earlier this week. Thanks, Lucca! On our way home, trucks stashed beneath the stroller, Elliott sighted Engine 20 parked in the street. When we stopped to inspect it, he asked for Lucca's fire truck and showed it to the driver, all the while saying "Eeeee-yar! Flash! Flash! Eeeee-yaaaar!"

Quince St Sunday