Octagonal pergola and lazy people

This weather continues to astound me. It's now the height of summer and yet I not only needed to wear a thick fleece when I was mowing the lawn on the ride on but I had to have the hood up and tied tightly to keep it there! I have never known summer to be so naff in the 12 years I've lived here - I understand the North East of Scotland is never going to be tropical but seriously, it feels like Autumn right now.
The garden has taken a serious battering and has been neglected for a while now because I've been getting on with building projects instead - weeds can wait lol.

I decided I wanted to build a gazebo as a walk through where the formal part of the garden meets what will be the new unformal part of the garden (once I've done it) but it couldn't be any old gazebo. Me being me I decided to go for an octagonal one and me being me again decided I could mash it together without plans.
The first few attempts were diabolical - I built the panels in the workshop (and even made a mistake on those that still exists because I'm too lazy to change it) and then formed the structure in situ. The problem is I'm one of those people where if there's a quick way and a right way I'll choose the quick way and every time I do that something goes wrong - as it did here.
I just could not get the angles right and couldn't figure out how to do it. In the end I sucked it up and asked Mr TG what I needed to do to get the angles correct, unfortunately this meant doing the job the long slow way and required me to build a square frame and work measurements out - booooooooring!
I have to admit though that the structure went up much quicker and easier once I had the frame to go by and used scaffold poles to hold things in place instead of attempting to hold everything level and drill at the same time - yes, that it how lazy I am.

 Stage 1 - after several attempts at getting these level upright I had a tantrum, pulled them out the ground (even though I had blisters on my hand from digging holes for the spikes) and threw them on the ground. Yes, I had a paddy!! and there they stayed for a few days.

Stage 2 - Mr TG told me how to get the angles correct and how to keep them level while I worked on the structure.

Most of it's up here. It's not perfect but then neither am I so who cares!!
Do you see the mistake on the panels I mentioned earlier? I must have measured 2 of them from one end when putting the cross sections in and two from the other end because two of them have an extra piece at the top - two don't lol.

The tedious job of painting it. I also weeded the bed to the right and planted Bamboo and a climbing rose. The rose is tied to the vertical wires I added to the side gaps as an afterthought.
The bed to the left is in dire need of weeding but it will have to wait.

Gras mowed makes a huge difference. I also completed the base inside the gazebo. It involved loads of cement and plenty of mess - those bricks and shingle are going nowhere!
The bricks sit just proud of the lawn on this side because the ground is lower here and I used the other side as a reference for height. The bricks are level but I will be adding a small step this side so there'll be no tripping over bricks.

I bought the compass slab a few years ago and have never used it until now. Mr TG set it in concrete for me but I didn't realise until it was done that he has the North pointing the wrong way. I did give him instructions as to where it needed to be - everyone here knows the sea is directly south lol- so the North should have pointed just before where the East currently is. Mr TG did offer to rectify it but tbh I like the quirkiness to it now and it's typical of all my projects - there's always something not quite right lol. I like it!