A change is as good as a holiday they say. Well, we've changed things up on Millerslocal - getting ourselves a new banner image for the Home page. Everyone used to moan about the old photo cos it showed a flat ocean....um, well, it generally always looks like that at Millers ou's!

Anyhow, a week ago I splashed out and spoilt myself with a new toy. It's called a Wacom Intous 4 - it's basically an etch-a-sketch on steroids. It's a tablet you draw on using a special pen, and as you draw, so it comes up on your screen. Pretty neat.

Only had my first bash at actually firing it up on Sunday, so have absolutely no idea how to drive it properly yet - just enough to be dangerous! As in I can draw an outline and colour it it, anything else a bit more finicky is lost on me. Not to be deterred, I dived right in and doodled us up a new pic.

Sort of Drew Brophy inspired (apologies to Drew) - a long way to go I know, but hell - it's such a fun thing to muck about with. Can see me wasting hours away when I should be working. Darn, when it was east I used to catch up on all my work -but now I have a new distraction for onshore days!

Keep watching this space, cos not only are we sprucing up our looks, there's soon to be some interesting new content on the way. But I can't tell you yet....you'll just have to wait!

*Drew Brophy is a famous surf artist who did all the board sprays for Lost surfboards at one stage.

Let me declare this upfront - I have more wetsuits than handbags or high-heels. Ok, so I only have 1 handbag and 2 pairs of heels (but 15 pairs of slops!). But I do have a LOT of wetsuits. I hate getting into wet wetsuits, and hey, you surf 3x in a day and an early sesh the next morning - you gotto have at least 4 suits. So yah, I dig wetsuits.

And I'm fussy...not having much of my own in-built insulation means I need a really good, warm suit. Which brings me to the subject of today's blog. I'm in love! My two new O'Neill Psycho 2 4/3's just arrived from the States. 

Oh man, it is just a ridiculously amazing suit. Buttery soft neoprene and so flexible you reckon you could twist yourself into a koeksister no problem. Which ain't bad for a 4/3. I actually didn't believe it was a 4/3 cos it was so damn stretchy and light, and kept checking the lil sticker on the cuff to make sure.

Having all the restraint of a lightie with Christmas presents, I pulled it out it's packaging and hopped straight into it to suss out the fit. Was praying like hang I'd chosen the right size (XS men's - we'll get back to that in a mo) as I'd dropped some pretty hefty coin for the 2 suits. So yah - all this wetsuit love isn't cos this was a freebie and I'm blowing air up a sponno's behind - no ways, these suits truly rock!

Anyhow, it fitted like a glove (shew) - must admit O'Neill (and Bong) have by far and away got the best fits in suits. So here I was hopping round the room like a bunny on acid, super stoked with my new suit. But hey, fit and flex are one thing, but was this puppy warm? Looking out the window revealed what could be construed as a borderline "wave" out at Millers, so decided to test drive it there and then. 

The only way I knew the water was in fact pretty coolish was that my hands got chilly - cos not a drop of water got into my suit and I was warm n toasty like a hot-cross bun at Easter.

So the suit quickly got a 10/10 - toasty, fits great, so stretchy you can do yoga in it, a 4/3 that feels like a 3/2, super comfy neckseal. What's not to like? (OK, so maybe you shell out a good whack for it, but then you treat it right, you'll get 2-3 seasons out of it easy).

To all you peeps out there that like to be lekker warm, whilst still being able to surf nice n loose, this is the suit for you. Go visit John down at Surf Centre, and he'll hook you up with your very own psychotically good Psycho.

Pity that it's just going into summer now! I might suffer heat exhaustion if I wear this thing.

Ag well, had to get the suits whilst I could - as SA O'Neill head honcho Paul Canning was heading over to Santa Cruz for a trade-show, and very kindly offered to bring the suits back for me....they don't stock XS in SA. Pity - there are plenty small peeps that need to be kept warm!

(You may be wondering why I don't just get a chicks suit, but with plenty years of top-end wetsuit experience, there is a beeeeg difference between the quality of chicks and guys suits, us ladies get a raw deal generally - not sure why...maybe we should take the wettie companies to constitutional court for gender inequality!).

Millerslocal turns ONE today. Pretty cool huh. Can't quite believe this all started just a year ago. What began as just a whimsical idea of having a lil homemade site with a coupla pic's plakked up on it now and again morphed into what it is today - which I hope you'll agree is a pretty fun site that keeps peeps up to date on whassup in the PE surf scene.

Can't say I had any idea of the amount of time and work this would entail (specially seeing as I have a real job and this just has to squeeze into free time), but I love every minute of it. There's also plenty of others peeps that have helped grow the site to what it is today. Special thanks to Ang, who was Millerslocal's first contributing photag - standing on that pipe day in and out to bring us great shots. Keep at it Ang, you'll get your name in lights one day! Also props to Big Dave from Surf Centre, who puts up regular prizes, and Daryl from KFC who feeds the photags.

Extra special thanks to my ever patient husband who puts up with me being stuck behind the computer updating the site after hours. We just had our 6 year anniversary yesterday - best husband in the world! Love ya!

Since our humble beginnings we've grown to having a dedicated core of photags that send us regular shots come rain or shine. Big pat on the back to guys like Luc, Dirk, Stan, Zane, Nick, Jono, Kody, Ang & Josh for keeping the photo's coming in. Also great to now have some video guys like Tertio, Tom, James, Josh and Jean starting to capture the action. Who knows, maybe we get an Innersection outta PE one day...

What's really cool is that all this coverage seems to be getting the best out of the guys in the water. The ou's are surfing incredibly these days, and the standard of surfing really seems on the up. Let's hope that we continue to get better coverage in the surf mags - cos now they are at last starting to realise that we do have good waves n good surfers down here. We used to be the ugly step-child til recently but at last they realising we're a force to be reckoned with. Be cool to see more of the guys picking up sponsors cos of the increased exposure. 

Also really nice to feel a lekker vibe in the water these days - largely due to the effort of the CYOH guys in getting the whole community spirit thing going. Let's keep building on that - the friendly city has it's friendly rep to live up too (we sure have no problem in living up to the "windy city" tag!) So much more fun to have a sesh where the ou's are chatting n hooting for each other & keeping some line-up etiquette, than trying to snake n hassle each other bedonderd.

Shew, what did I learn this year? Running a website takes LANK time and effort; I suck with names, sorry if I ID you wrong in a shot; the sun rises in the wrong place for morning shoots; it costs a shitload of money - I've dropped the cash equivalent of a small new car to buy all my camera/video/computer/software stuff (presently have only moths left in my bank account!); some people have no sense of humour - such is life; John still stands in the car park; and....

We have the most amazing surf community in South Africa - shot ou's, you the best! Local is lekker!

Bring on year 2......