So the guy next door has been on a major project. The previous owner has put in wooden decking and a fish pond, which I thought looked kind of nice. Current guy didn't like it, so he hired a company of knuckle draggers to take that out and put "something" in instead.
I need to take a photo of the edifice and post it. It is basically a built-in double barbecue. This is truly in the brutalist style - it is like an angular horseshoe that you can stand behind, but big enough that two or three can get behind there, and so seriously built could double as a nuclear shelter. One barbecue is I think gas powered (well, there was copper pipe going on at one point), and I think the other is charcoal. Where the decking was he has paved in off-white slabs, which are also on the top surface of the barbecue horseshoe.
The outfit he got to do all this started in October, and have just finished. I swear you could build a whole house in that time.
The problem is that this is in the UK - where it is cold and rainy more often than not. Last year we managed a total of three barbecues in our kettle because that was the only coincidence of (a) decent enough weather on the day (b) a weekend and (c) enough certainly of good weather to buy the meat. We planned to barbecue several more times, and ended up cooking inside on the hob.
So I have absolutely no idea why the guy has spent so much money on something that will hardly ever be used. I look forward to seeing it used in anger, but I'm not holding my breath.