What does the ANO say ?
Its part B section one
Its something like for the purposes of this section or something like that.
cross country is anything over 3 miles.
And covers ratings.
Realistically nobody has a clue what you are doing if your not in the circuit ie out with 3 miles. Nobody is going to ask you for your logs of any flight. So if you go up for an hour and log 6 landings you can't log xcountry . If you go up for an hour and only log one you can count it.
Lets face your pre planned route can be to go from the airfield to the training area which is visable from the circuit and then return after general handling practise. Using the standard navigation procedure of looking out the window.