I have just returned from a three day stint at the not so sunnier climbs of our third-cousin-once-removed paper, the Northern Echo in Darlington.

Packed in to a training room with ten fellow Newsquest reporters from across the country I spent the latter half of last week swotting up for some impending exams.

Together we reminded ourselves how to write and how not to get sued for what we write as we dabbled in student life once more.

It was fun. After finding my feet and Starbucks’ Frappucinos I used the opportunity not only to transform myself into an A-grade student (in theory) but to swap notes on the trials and tribulations of the various patches covered by my Newsquest colleagues.

With representations from Dorset, Southampton, Swindon and the not-so-far-away Wycombe, Watford and Enfield, we discovered that what makes news is entirely symptomatic of the area it is for. As I recalled with no pride whatsoever that crime is so frequent in Haringey (especially in the east) that sometimes we filter out the ‘mundane’ offences with only the truly dramatic making the cut, I fully realised how different it would be to live elsewhere.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of a sheep killing being classed as a major incident in any newspaper, but there’s no doubting its newsworthiness in other parts of the country. And some other reporters seemed astonished at the volume of crime and disorder we report on. I’m not saying that Haringey is riddled with crime (and I would readily praise the efforts of the local police force in bringing crime rates down), my point is writing for a local newspaper means such drastically different things depending on where you are. And the choice of stories gracing the pages of the Haringey Independent, or any of our brother/ sister/ mother/ father publications, tells its own story on what that area is like to live in.

So I flicked through this week’s offering from myself and Elizabeth, with stories about deportation battles, leisure centre price hikes, fires, disorder, politics and crime and smiled at a familiarity of it all. As much as it was fun to compare notes, I’m happy with my patch. Yes there might be enough CPZ issues to send to the moon and back (but not between the hours of 11am and 12pm) and a saga surrounding Alexandra Palace that would put any soap opera to shame, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. After three days away, it’s good to be back .