Golden Ticket not Required

The crushing disappointment at the lack of Viking bones at Stamford bridge did not leave us in despair. We headed to Yorkshire Lavender, which is a lavender farm where one can go and smell lavender, and stock up on lavender products. Yes, I am seeing how many times I can put lavender in a sentence. It was a bit strange, but a lovely place and if you ever need lavender jam or lavender honey or lavender soap or lavender clothes or lavender candles of every shape and size. Five! A new record.
I am happy to report that I have kind of figured out how 'rock' is made, and how they get those tiny letters in the candy sticks. It isn't actually magic or oompa-loompas, or other height deficient people with very small pens, but it is still insane. I can't even describe it to you really, but know that all rock, which ends up being a stick of candy about an inch or less in diameter, starts its life out as a huge, 3' long, 1' wide piece of freshly minted sugar. The letters start out far larger that I had imagined and are extruded though this scary machine until they are teeny-tiny. Talk about something I could nerd out about! Candy factory!
And speaking of plaques, I am pretty sure we earned the record of 'people who stood, slack-jawed in front of the rock making process the longest.' We (and by 'we' I mean I) were seriously glazed over watching them make candy, and all the free samples were not to blame.
Best part about factory tours: seconds. Like any good food factory, they had loads of factory seconds for sale at low prices. You could even buy enormous bags of candy mistakes which were just colorful blobs of diabetes that could entertain the kids for years to come. Everlasting gobstoppers, indeed.
Soon after this, we found the coast and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the view of the chalk cliffs at Flamborough head which also boasts one of the largest wave cut platforms in England (thanks, UK Ellie). What a cool place to be. England's oldest lighthouse, recently restored for tons of money, is also there. What more could you need?
We spent the night in Scarborough and readied ourselves for a day down by the sea.