Barbie hard yards

If there's one thing in life that's free, available in bucketloads, can be delivered at short notice, and makes the giver even happier than the recipient, it's advice.
This point has been brought home to me on a number of occasions since we revamped our courtyard and forgot to include a barbecue.
Well, we didn't actually forget, but it became less of a priority than new seating, outdoor cupboards, two gorgeous golden nugget plants in big terracotta tubs to flank the fish pond, and the complete refurbishment of our outdoor furniture.
So it's been open-season at our place as friends, relatives, delivery people and even the man who comes to read the meter offer their occasionally useful, but mostly unrealistic, opinions on what we should do about a barbecue.
The advice varies from "grab one of those cheap $199 jobs from The Warehouse" (since when, the miser in me demanded, was $199 "cheap?"), to "how about a five-burner with side jets and a built-in sink - won't set you back more than a couple of grand".
Well, with apologies to the meter reader, I wouldn't spend a couple of grand, or even a single grand, on a barbecue even if I wanted one. Which (yes, I know this is sacrilege) I don't.
I hate barbecues. They take up far too much room in your outdoor living space, they smoke, you can smell them for several days after you've used them, they're full of horrible little channels and crevices that grease can reach but you can't and are consequently impossible to clean without a couple of spray cans of engine degreaser and a water blaster.
I almost wet my pants the other day reading advice in an overseas garden magazine on which barbie was easiest to clean. "For easy cleaning, this is the winner," it said. "It features oil trays that can be scraped and drained and then put in the dishwasher, as well as split grills that come apart for cleaning, and a detachable hood for easy wiping."
Funny, when I've finished making the Italian bread and the warm roast vegetable salad with homemade aioli to go with the steaks, I don't generally have to dismantle my basic four-burner hob and standard electric oven to clean them. I just, um, turn them off.
And the great thing is, my partner still has to help me with the dishes, unlike many archetypal Kiwi jokers who think that spending five minutes at the barbecue churning out a few bits of burnt steak as an accompaniment to the food it's taken me all afternoon to make will excuse them.
However, having said all these incredibly rude things about iconic Kiwi jokers and their barbies, I have to admit that I have particularly fond memories of the first barbecue I ever had.
My first husband brought the components home in his ute. "Where did you get those?" I said. "I found them in the road," he replied with absolute honesty. With considerable difficulty, he unloaded two of those pieces of cast iron that, three decades ago, were used to span the kerb so you could drive, without bumping, from the road into your driveway.
The manufacturers had thoughtfully cast them with a grid pattern on the top, which was as ideal for channelling fat as it was for lending grip to car tyres. The husband built a couple of brick walls to hold them up, one above the other. The lower one was to build the fire on and the top one to cook the food. We were good to go.
That barbie was the envy of all our friends. The iron plate was so thick it held the heat all night, and you could clean in it about two minutes with the car brush on the end of the hose.
So if we get a barbecue this year, that's what I'd like. If anyone lives in a town where they still have those iron things over the gutters, let me know, would you?