Friends bring ‘Palmy pride’ to Block
A Palmerston North salad bar owner and her best friend are wearing their hometown pride on their sleeves as the new kids on The Block. Emily Blanchett and Chloe Hes have been virtually inseparable since they met at Palmerston North Girls’ High School when they were 13 years old. They hope to make the city proud, and plan to get plenty of screentime for their ‘‘Palmy pride’’ T-shirts. Neither would say they were experienced builders, but they liked to push each other and saw The Block as a new challenge. ‘‘We’ve definitely worked together through some stressful situations, and we love getting out of our comfort zones,’’ Blanchett said. When Blanchett opened The Green House, with her mum Gill Yorke, Hes was one of the first people to jump on board to help get the salad bar off the ground. Blanchett said it was a good experience to have under their tool belts ahead of The Block. They had no idea what they were doing at first but, four years on, The Green House was a successful and popular Palmerston North business, she said. Blanchett said, in comparison, she was a bit more experienced heading on to The Block after renovating the house she bought in January. She’d gutted, redesigned and rebuilt the whole interior, she said. Hes said she had barely even touched a tool, let alone done a major building project before. But she was starting to get the hang of things after a couple of weeks of filming. The Block NZ starts on Sunday, July 8, at 7pm on Three.