With Britain in Bloom judges due to arrive next week, Team GoodGym Bexley joined forces with Sidcup & Partners for a final push to help Sidcup put its best foot forward.

Five of us met Colin from Sidcup & Partners outside Sidcup Station, where he explained our task: in a change to the original plan of painting some flower planters (for which Vic was wearing her well-used 'we are doing some painting' GG t-shirt), we were asked to give the sensory garden outside the ticket hall a thorough weed and litter clearance.

Earlier this year we'd helped reclaim the area from a jungle of weeds, ready for new planting, and it was great to see how lovely those plants are now looking. The weeds, however, hadn't given up without a fight, so it was full steam ahead evicting the latest unwelcome arrivals while also collecting the litter that had found its way into the beds.

With the sensory garden looking much tidier, we just had time to turn our attention to the path leading to the station car park, clearing some sneaky weeds there too to create a blooming good first impression from the moment commuters and passengers exit the station.

After an hour of pulling, plucking and picking, the area was looking tidier and well on track for the Britain in Bloom judging. Fingers crossed our efforts help Sidcup get top marks!

The task for this week was straightforward in what we needed to do but logistically a little more challenging as we needed to spread out in groups across the surrounding area of Glass Mill.

Our task was to complete the health checks of the street trees for living that have been planted in the past couple of years. Armed with a form to submit and for some a device to measure tree trunks whether that being an actual tape measure or a 19cm hand, and a map of what trees we needed to tick off.

We managed to health check over 70 trees which is amazing work! The team at street trees for living are very grateful of our efforts!!

Congratulations to Paul for achieving the dizzy heights of 1,000 good deeds. We look forward to seeing you sporting your 1,000 tshirt soon!