The C152 continued to climb, albeit with a fair bit of vibration, and I therefore made the (initial) decision to head back to 'home base'.
big.al
Well done on a successful outcome. It's incredibly easy to criticise and look back with hindsight from a warm room in front of a computer screen, but planning to head back to home base 25nm away with any amount of rough running in the engine probably was not a great initial decision.
Like I say, I don't want to diminish what you did or detract from the successful outcome, but if one's looking for lessons -- and that's what this forum is all about -- I would suggest that is one.
QDM