Aussie Andy:
Your tale could've been subtitled 'how to get into inadvertant IMC' - which is a condition that I used to fondly imagine was not really a risk, and only happened to eejits or people who were conciously flirting with instrument flying, but it happened to me two weeks ago and I wasn't doing the latter and (despite the incident) don't regard myself as the former.
I got further into it than you by the sounds of things, and also had cause to thank the syllabus setters while I was executing the 180 degree turn. Mind you, I didn't do it too well and less than halfway through was still looking out the window when I should've been glued to the AI - the speed built rather dramatically and the engine note alerted me to the dive I was already in.....
In my case it was Humberside whose cool calm voices lowered the nav workload and plomped me onto their runway, but they still charged me the full landing fee, resolutely staying out of the 'free landings for geniune weather diverts' scheme.
My next purchase was the IMC confuser, and the next call was to an instructor to start arranging the IMC course, which will start as soon as my group's a/c is back in the air (she's not grounded due to anything I did, I hasten to add). Basically, I'm not going for (m)any more jollies until I've got it under my belt.
Steve R