Hi Julian,
If I'd known that I would have stayed out in the practice area for a bit longer than I did rather than boring myself stupid doing stop n goes on the runway.
My home base is a 24 hour international airport anyway, all they ask is for us to fly downwind at 1000' instead of the day time circuit of 800'.
Actually I quite liked the stop n goes at night. As you say flying at night is one of the most pleasurable experiences that one can have flying light aircraft.
Definately learnt about the wind gradient at night being a bit stronger than day time - calm wind on the ground and I had a heck of a crab on final initially.
Best wishes,
Charlie Zulu.