Stormy Weather and Lemon Meringue Soup

We visited BIL this afternoon who is much improved. He was awake and chatting away about trucks as he is wont to do since his heart attack. His mind is stuck in a bit of a time warp, or maybe I should say truck warp, as his memories are mostly of his life as a truck driver and he talks of it incessantly to everyone. It is heartbreaking to see him like this and we have  a long wait until he goes into rehab and to see if he will improve. 
I was in the middle of making a good old Aussie dessert, Lemon Meringue Pie, for some visitors when we got the phone call from the hospital yesterday. I took the pot of half-made curd off the stove while we talked about what to do. I cancelled our visitors and Hubby went to have a shower as he had been working. In the meantime I quickly finished off the lemon curd and stuck it and the egg whites in the fridge. 
This morning I decided to finish off the pie. Not a wise decision. I rolled out the bought pastry and baked it blind but forgot to put paper under the rice I was using as a weight. I quickly took it out of the oven and tried to empty out the rice but the softened pastry slid out of the dish and disintegrated. The rice got mixed up with it so had to throw it out. I hate admitting defeat so I decide to make my own pastry. I am hopeless at this. I can cook very complicated things but pastry and poached eggs are my nemeses. However, it turned out beautifully for once. I blind baked it and remembered to put the paper under the rice. The eggs whites whipped up beautifully even though they were cold and I just had time to cook it before going out for lunch. After lunch and visiting BIL we picked up the pie and took it over to one of the friends we cancelled yesterday. I put it in a basket and carefully put it on my knee to transport it. After a few minutes I peeked inside to check how it was carrying and, to my horror, I could see the beautifully browned peaks of meringue sliding around on top of my super crisp pastry. The lemon curd was slopping over the crust and running through a hole in the basket onto my trousers. I had to dump the dripping basket in the boot when we got there. Fortunately Hubby keeps paper towel in the car.
We ate it - with a spoon from a soup bowl. Hubby said it was delicious and ate 2 slices bowls full. My friend politely ate one piece bowl. 
Not sure if it was the recipe at fault, the stress or the curdus interruptus but I am determined to try again when things settle down.