This is the story of the Marquess, the Old Masters and the Bentley. The tale of my bravely blazing the trail for masterpieces by Van Dyck, Rubens and Murillo to be returned from Russia to Norfolk 234 years after Catherine the Great bought them in a sale that caused national outcry in Britain.

It’s a story of me and my trusty Mulsanne intrepidly leading the way from the Hermitage State Museum, St Petersburg, across thousands of miles of frozen terrain to Houghton Hall, Norfolk – and there, in their original home, the grandest of stately piles, to await the arrival of the priceless collection of paintings that was originally housed there and belonged to Britain’s first PM, Sir Robert Walpole. Except I cheated a little.

Reader, I had planned to do this long drive (1868 miles behind the wheel through Latvia, Lithuania etc.). Honest. But then to circumvent a billion-hour wait at the Estonian border crossing, monotonous days of unspectacular scenery of the northern European plains and USSR-size piles of bureaucratic papers, I took the plane from St Petersburg and then drove from Heathrow to Houghton.

So instead this is now a far more thrilling story – about the car made in Heaven and finished off in Crewe: the Mulsanne. After all, who needs to read about endless roads, blizzards and Russian forests when you could be thinking about a vehicle with TVs in its headrests and veneer tables for champagne flutes?

So we can pass quickly over the W hotel in St Petersburg with its clientele of Russian twigs in spray-on dresses. There! Done. And gloss over the joys of that city’s grand apricot palaces and orthodox churches by the frozen Neva River on which people were walking. We need also reflect only fleetingly on my private visit to the Hermitage – with its three million Michelangelos, Picassos etc. – a breathtaking place where it would take 11 years to see everything, spending just one minute before each exhibit.

Indeed, the only really important thing about St Petersburg was that I was chauffeured in a Mulsanne. Twice when we stopped in the city, passers-by gawped at and photographed our palace on wheels. You think it’s cor! from the outside – well, you should be in here, I wanted to cry. It glides, it purrs and it smells so good I want to bottle it (leather and veneer); there are acres of seats – ones that massage/warm to perfection and probably serve vodka; vanity mirrors for applying that slick of Dior lipstick; soft- shut doors; and a Bentley designed phone. That’s Russia done then.

We can also dispense hastily with British sights, including my stupendous private visit to the fine Palladian house that is Houghton. And forget my meeting with the 7th Marquess of Cholmondley – its current occupant, the country’s most important peer and who has secured 70 of Sir Robert Walpole’s best pictures back from Russia. And disregard the William Kent décor there being returned to its splendid original 18th century specifications.

All that matters is that I drove to Norfolk in a Mulsanne. A motor that goes nought to seriously fast in a nanosecond; with suspension better than any bed; and boasting special specifications – like polished aluminium wheels (£13,410) and sunroof. When I rested a while, I had at my fingertips its bespoke silver tumblers and ashtrays. And a Naim for Bentley sound system. Quite some trip. But with this car, every journey is an event.

Alexandros Matsukis, director, founder, co-owner of Ionian & Aegean Island Holidays, provides a close-up of the region. His tour operator company has been renting out villas there since 2002 and is now the undisputed market leader on the sort of islands for which the big boys are gunning.

Ionian & Aegean Island Holidays have 200 villas on 10 islands and mainland Greece on their books, including several private Matsukis- owned properties, and a turnover of £9 million and growing annually. They have offices in London, Lefkada and Meganisi.

Is this little spot in the Ionian turning into the new epicentre of the jet-set world?
Some of the richest and most powerful men on the planet are buying here. The Emir of Qatar has just bought six islands including Oxia; one of the world’s richest Russians, billionaire businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev has scooped up an island, Skorpios; and in the middle of them, in Meganisi, billionaire banker Lord Jacob Rothschild has bought 8km of land and a small island.

You’ve said that history is repeating itself in the region.
The late shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis could have chosen anywhere in the universe. What do you do when you own most of Monaco and have billions in gold reserves? Choose Skorpios as your haven, of course. Niarchos – his big rival and another one with all the money and influence in the world – bought Spetsaipoula, a small island off Spetsai. 50 years later, the wheel’s turned full circle – and the most powerful people on the planet are choosing this area again.

For lesser mortals, what if Greece blows up or things get tougher – despite its having been bailed out?
The worst is over. We entered the tunnel first and so can see the light at its end earlier, certainly before Spain or Italy. In Greece the austerity was harsh. People were so worried – but now you see a look on people’s faces of hope and acceptance. We’re quite philosophical. After all, we invented philosophy.

But austerity means that even the rich are now needing to earn extra money by renting their villa, doesn’t it?
The most beautiful villas in the area were never before available for rental. But because of the crisis and the new taxation, even the wealthy are suddenly needing to meet more bills and bring in more money – so a lot of top villas have now come onto the open market. We’ve picked up 25 of them in the last two years. They’re mostly wealthy Athenian’s second houses – summer homes – and investments.

The standard in the rental market has jumped hugely over the last couple of years. A few wealthy Greeks who’ve owned small private islands for decades are also putting them on the market after the government increased property taxes and stretched them too far.

So the new luxury heralds the end of billionaires needing yachts, does it?
The area has been a massive draw for the ultra wealthy for years. They visit in the summer on mega boats – from Hollywood A listers like Tom Hanks and Spielberg, to Roman Abromovitch, Bill Gates and Madonna. The emir of Qatar moored his super-yacht nearby for a holiday. Because there isn’t yet the luxury on shore, they use their own private gin palaces – the £200-700,000-a-week type. But with the new developments in the region, they’re soon going to be able to do luxury on shore.

How are Ionian & Aegean Island Holidays keeping up?
We’re keeping apace of local developments by moving into the luxury market aswell – currently we offer simple to 5*. We’re investing in and improving properties that have settings from paradise – all in incredible locations with sea views and often with direct access to deserted beaches – but whose owners haven’t previously added luxurious décor and fittings.

By offering the owners longer contracts – say three years on a property with exclusivity – we’re getting them to invest more. We’re repositioning ourselves in the region as a luxury product too for clients who want a notch above the rest. Next year, we’ll be able to offer amazing infinity swimming pools, great quality builds and interiors, space and panoramic views. But we’re not talking super luxury.

What are your views on the area going upmarket? On the jet -set coming to land? Party time coming to the region again?
You’ve got the wrong idea if you think it’s going to be party town. You’re more likely to come across parties for patron saints of the islands or a festival to honour the archbishop…. a service in a tiny church followed by free wine, soup and sardines outside plus music and dancing. But it’ll be plain sailing for serious investors like Rothschild. There’s more than enough natural beauty to create something amazing here. All he has to do is design some interesting properties.

There’s a lot going on in the travel business in the region, isn’t there?
There has been fresh interest in the area. Upmarket operators Think Ionian – as in Think Sicily and Think Puglia – have just started here. (They too are going to be running a new weekly charter flight here.) But we’ve already contracted all the best villas since Travelux stopped operating here. The big operators don’t bother with places like Meganisi or Paxos, small islands that are much harder to operate on and are more costly because of boat transfers etc. We have our own boats.

What’s the future look like?
On Meganisi we have thirteen villas and are building two more (at the cost of the owners). Since 2011, we’ve been adding 20 per cent more properties to their portfolio a year, and 50 per cent more in Meganisi alone.

Are you now going into partial ownership?
We’re looking at buying properties with investors. We want to invest in Greece (rather than just contracting) because of the bargains and our commitment to the country.

If you’re not Greek, it’s known to be difficult to do business there. People can be put off by Greece’s red tape and inefficiency, can’t they?
It’s a lot easier these days, foreign investment is very welcome and a lot of the hurdles and red tape has ended. After the last few years of the Troika, the coalition government has simplified Greek laws and made the country as inviting as possible for foreign investment, seeing the importance of growth in addition to austerity. Foreigners like Lord Rothschild will sometimes still get Greek business partners to use as ‘frontmen’ to speed up local processes, but it’s really not necessary these days.

And if you’re buying an island?
Ithaca’s Greek-American mayor, Ioannis Kassianos recently said: ‘When you buy an island, even if you are the emir of Qatar, it takes eighteen months to complete the paperwork.’ But it’s a well-known secret that exceptions can be made for investors of that calibre.

The mayor felt that development plans could also pose problems and that the emir may be set for a long battle with Greek officials over his plans. Regardless of the size of the land, a home can be no bigger than 250 square metres. ‘The emir,’ said Mr Kassianos, ‘responded to that suggestion by saying his WC is 250 square metres.’ But I think the emir will get his 1,000 sq metre loo if he wants it!

You’ve dug deep into your piggie bank and are very committed to the region, aren’t you?
Ionian & Aegean Island Holidays take in four planes weekly from Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham. As an operator, we’re the most exposed locally, but our clients can always get flights.

What does Lord Rothschild know that we don’t? Why would someone want to buy/rent on Meganisi?
It is not a Corfu or Rhodes, even though Lord Rothschild has an estate in Corfu. Islands like Meganisi don’t even have scheduled international flights. Most operators and purchasers went to Kefalonia, Lefkada, Corfu and Rhodes. Luckily Meganisi has been forgotten. It’s a secret paradise – as naturally beautiful, secluded and unspoiled as it gets – and uniquely peaceful. But it didn’t have the properties to begin with. It’s smaller. (Just 9 square miles.) It kept going quietly with its old, loyal visitors.

The mentality of the people there takes you back in time. They’re quite different, not greedy. They open their homes to visitors, and offer them hospitality. Their attitude to ‘philoxenia’ (friendliness to strangers) surpasses that of any other island. The competition it has faced from neighboring islands has been a blessing in disguise. It’s been a victim in a nice way.

“A thousand pounds for a haircut?!” I hear you say. “But you could feed an African village for a year… buy two Hermès belts… how can any hairdo be worth that sort of money?”

Either you need your head examined, expensively, or you’re tidying topiary for a palace. Who spends a grand on something that’s going to grow out?

The answer is that oligarchs’ wives and assorted A-listers spend £1,000 for a haircut. The likes of Lady Gaga, Linda Evangelista, Michelle Pfeiffer, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie. Pippa Middleton goes to the maestro’s salon – or hairspa as it’s known. And the Duchess of Cambridge? If she does, nobody’s saying.

Welcome to the world of Rossano Ferretti, the 53-year-old coiffeur who’s leading a hair revolution. Ferretti is to 2013 what Vidal Sassoon – creator of the five-point cut and Ferretti’s mentor – was to the Sixties.

You haven’t heard of him? That’s forgivable, as he only opened his hairspa in London last year. But he’s ginormous. He has 20 hairspas from Beverley Hills to Milan, is a global spokesman for L’Oreal, runs hair seminars from China to Mumbai, and has world-wide academies where he teaches his approach. He’s the only global hairdressing brand.

Ferretti has more USPs than you’ll find in 16 alphabets. He devised and patented The Method, a unique technique for cutting hair (about which, more later). He has created and patented a special pair of scissors: texturising ones, that snip a delicate 18 per cent instead of the habitual 30.

He claims to have invented the Invisible Cut (full of layers, but you don’t see them). And, along with ace colourist Carl Dawson (who does Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Gwyneth), is developing a unique hair colouring procedure (watch this space).

The Rossano Ferretti Hairspa experience
But is this all the Emperor’s New Clothes? Are we talking nothing more than clever marketing and gimmickry?

I decide to put my tresses to the test. The Rossano Ferretti Hairspa (all 5,500 square foot of it for just 14 hair stations) is in a four-storey, Georgian townhouse in Mayfair’s St George Street.

A good-looking, besuited doorman spirits me up the sweeping staircase beneath the bespoke Fabergé black glass chandelier. Upstairs there are black floorboards, hair products displayed in antique frames and a 1936 perm machine that belonged to Ferretti’s grandparents. (He is a third generation hairdresser.)

There are no mirrors; another first. Women, he believes, shouldn’t suffer seeing themselves in transition.

And there’s no thudding music. Even the noise of hair dryers is kept to a separate room. Forget hairspa. This is a hair temple.

The Method: a hair innovation
Ferretti appears in a jacket, waistcoat and patterned scarf. (Like the children of the cobbler who has no shoes, he’s bald.) He is stylish, charming and solicitous. He takes my hair in his hands and tuts: “Whoever did this, sorry. This is not the right job for them.” (It was one of the guys at Nicky Clarke’s, actually.)

Then he sprays my hair with essence of unicorn’s tears before taking out his diamond-encrusted platinum scissors. Not really. What he actually does is pick up strands of my hair, let go of them and, as they are falling, snip away. Cutting the hair in motion. The Method.

As he works, we chat about his earlier life, working on catwalk shows for Armani, St Laurent and Dior, and shoots with Richard Avedon. Ferretti started in the trade at 14.

Now he jets from LA (“hair colour city”) to New York (“all about blond and blow out”) to London (“volume and bounce.”)

He did Jennifer Lawrence’s, Kate Hudson’s and Reese Witherspoon’s hair for the Oscars. His has been a meteoric rise from humble beginnings. But how does he justify his charges?

“Quality,” he says. “In the USA people happily pay for it. It’s different in Europe.”

It’s true that Nicky Clarke and Paul Edmonds charge £500 for new clients. But across the Atlantic, Frederic Fekkai, Sally Hershberger and Gibson cost $750, $850 and $950.

“The truth is, I don’t want clients. I’m too busy. I have a brilliant team for doing haircuts.”

As the Italian hairdresser della celebrita cuts my hair, he zeroes in on the way it falls, its structure and texture, rather than forcing it into an unnatural shape.

“The scissors don’t do the haircut, they’re an elongation of my hands,” says Rossano Scissorhands, swooping and curving his body as he works. “I move myself around the hair, not stand there like a stone.”

Hmmm. But doesn’t any halfway decent stylist take note of the natural movement and structure of the hair? And as for the scissors with gaps, aren’t they really just thinning scissors?

He stops and contemplates. “Hair grows vertically and with The Method technique, I cut it holding the scissors vertically, not horizontally,” he replies. “In this way, we achieve a natural movement of the hair which is not geometric or box-like.”

And the scissors? “Usually thinning ones have two blades with teeth. But The Method texturising ones have one plain blade and the other with teeth…” (See a photo gallery on Ferretti’s site.)

Was it worth it?
He takes three inches off my hair. It’s far more than I’d have suggested, though I had told him to do whatever he wanted. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? You don’t go around telling £200–a-second brain surgeons how to work. Fifteen minutes later Ferretti is finished. (OK, a mere £67 a minute.)

The results are fantastic. A sort of bob de nos jours. Full of life. Natural. Flattering. Afterwards friends comment that they’ve never seen my hair looking so good; and my children say it looks professionally blow-dried, permanently.

Crucially, it looks just as good when I wash and go myself. It’s grown-up hair. Hair the way it’s meant to look, not following trends or forced to do things that it doesn’t want to do. Hair that has self -assurance.

When it grows out
But there’s a problem with the haircut: it grows. And I don’t have £1,000 for another. So two months later I take a photo of my original Ferretti-ed head to my local salon and say, “Copy that, please.”

Now I’m not stupid. Granted my local is not a hairspa, but it’s not just any old salon.

It’s owned by a famed snipper, who’s no slouch himself. In his day, he’s done TV presenters and pop stars. And he has a nice view of the railway line. So it should be a bit like taking a designer dress to be copied in India. And I’ve done that a few times.

Anyway, he says “no problem” and chops away. But maybe it’s because his scissors thin by 30 per cent, maybe it’s because he cuts horizontally, but whatever it is, I end up looking like Richard III. And weeping. And £70 poorer.

This means that, just 24 hours later, I find myself paying to have my hair cut – again. This time, the hairdresser, the beautiful Pol Garcia, snips elegantly. He cuts my hair as it falls. He does yoga-style bends around my body. The result has volume, bounce and elegance. It costs £150.

Ah! Did I tell you that he cuts Pippa Middleton’s hair? Oh, and that he works at the Rossano Ferretti Hairspa? Ferretti has a talented team who offer his cuts at a snip of the price.

I’m sold on The Method. One of these days I’d love to have another cut by Ferretti. After all, it only costs 1.4p a follicle.

It appeals to me when I arrive at Grayshott Spa and know from the minute I walk into the entrance hall that I can wear a white robe from now on. ‘You don’t have to worry about labels on your tracksuit or whether you have the correct evening clothes. Just bring trackies and robust walking boots’, was all Vicki Edgson, nutritionist, global spa retreat leader and health consultant, had insisted. ‘The rest of the time, you probably won’t even get out of your dressing gown’. And yes, there is a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest aspect to the grande dame of spas with its fifty-somethings padding around in slippers and white robes.

Grayshott is under an hour from London and suddenly I am in utter peace and tranquillity and the former country seat of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Welcome to Comfort Central with Surrey bourgeois décor trying to go modern, gigantic double beds (or two in one football-stadium-sized room), lots of candles, an apple orchard, sauna and comforting middle-aged matrons in white coats.

There’s a cigar room turned bar with a water menu from around the world (and wine); and a billiards room that has morphed into a cinema with pink walls, where they also hold lectures on everything from how to dress to life coaching.

I’m here for a ‘Vital Health – Weight Management’ retreat with Vicki. It’s normally a seven-day retreat, but I plan to do it in two and a half days (but only because I’m on a press trip that doesn’t last longer). Vicki starts from the position that people eat too much and of the wrong things and at the wrong times of the day, which is hardly reinventing the wheel. But this turns out to be not your bog-standard detoxing retreat. She looks at key factors essential for long-lasting, sustainable, empowering energy – known as the Vital Force in Eastern Medicine.

There are eight of us, including two women who have done an extreme diet and lost seven stone between them. We start our retreat in the traditional dining room with a group chat over a plated supper that wouldn’t stretch the stomach of a Chihuahua dog. There’s no going back for seconds; in fact, adding pepper would probably tip the balance into what’s considered over-eating here.

But the food is healthy and terribly good (think grilled fish and saffron gnocchi) and all the better for being eaten after a digestive enzyme tablet, apparently. Plus the accompanying basil water has anti-bacterial qualities. ‘Would you like water or water?’ asks the waitress, offering herb-infused aqua or Grayshott’s own brand. ‘You should be running to the loo every half hour,’ warns Vicki, cheerily.

Vicki tells us that the next few days will be filled with plenty of outdoor cardiovascular exercise, gym circuit class, fresh air, sleep and treatments to help to ‘up-regulate the metabolism,’ (nutritionist speak for fat-burning.) This is to be interspersed with stuff to calm the nerves – mind-relaxing T’ai Chi, Chi Gung, yoga and suchlike – to prepare us for ‘proper, restorative’ sleep.

In between, we will be meeting for three meals a day – breakfast being the largest, lunch being of the help yourself variety, (don’t get excited: they give you a teeny Grayshott plate with coloured stripes denoting how much each of protein, carbs and greens you can have,) and supper the lightest, (think a palm-sized portion).

We will also be knocking back our body fluid ratio in herbal teas: cayenne pepper and lemon in the morning to stimulate liver and cleansing; turmeric (if you want something that tastes like a half-washed take-away curry container); Japanese Hojicha tea for balancing the stress hormones (known as an adaptogen, as needed by the adrenal glands); and Harmonise tea instead of Mogadon.

We are up early for a racy walk around what feels like most of the 700 autumnal acres of National Trust land that backs onto Grayshott’s 47 acres. It’s exhilarating. Then there’s a jam-packed schedule. It’s not faddish, essentially English and does what matters incredibly well. The therapists are unrivalled (one was a masseur here for 40 years; and most of them have worked here for more than 20 years) and the treatments range from beautifying treats to Hopi Ear Candling and food intolerance analysis. But we follow Vicki’s directives when it comes to treatments; when it comes to everything, in fact.

I have a Body Composition Analysis with Ravi (a personal trainer and International and World Cup hockey player) who promises I’ll get taller afterwards (it’s something to do with tightening my muscles, if I remember correctly). He measures my water, protein, fat and mineral content. Then I have an Oriental Wisdom with Catherine which is unique to Grayshott and one of the best massages I’ve ever had. It incorporates Tui-na massage, Shiatsu, oils with Chinese herbs and a bit of magic.

There’s my back massage with Pam from Bradford who delights me as much with her talents honed over decades as her tales of when she was a Young Communist. And the body scrub where I’m slavered in algae and wrapped in plastic like a demented fish roll. We also do a walking mediation, wandering the beautiful grounds together in silence. ‘I don’t mind if you hug a tree,’ laughs our guide Faye, who oozes spirituality and has worked in hospices. It’s the staff who make Grayshot: they’re friendly, helpful and make me feel so mothered.

We spend much of our time with Vicki, a friendly hurricane with boundless energy and a TV presenter’s presentation. She’s also a numero uno exhibit of the glow, pert bum and cheery disposition that comes from fitness, good food and a positive attitude to life. ‘We all have a choice about our own wellbeing,’ she says. Later she asks us to think about what we’d do if we had two hours to ourselves every day. It may be boring that I say I’d like to read but it makes me decide to implement changes in my life.

Over our time together, Vicki proves that eating more slowly, (she terms this ‘conscious eating’ but really it’s masticating and not nearly as much fun as it’s semiotic cousin); selecting the right balance of foods for each individual (she suggests I miss out sugar and caffeine); and addressing eating issues, (show me a woman who doesn’t have any, and I’ll show you a liar) are key to changing our attitude to our appearance and weight. Each of us in the group has specific difficulties that need to be addressed, and Vicki works with forensic focus to ensure that we all have our own plan by the time we leave. Mine includes vitamin recommendations and a visit to Dr Marion Gluck, London’s hormonal health guru and one of the country’s leading holistic doctors.

The group dynamic is vital for the success of this type of retreat. ‘You may not want to sit down to yet another meal with everyone here every day,’ says Vicki. But, surprisingly, eating together is a hoot. Even more surprisingly I feel full after the food that we’re given. We learn a lot about nutrition and listening to other women’s problems around their food habits and addictions is enlightening. ‘It’s a sharing and caring atmosphere, with much laughter and empathy, isn’t it?’ says Vicki. I leave with a smile on my lips, a bounce in my step, a little less lardy and feeling totally refreshed. Even my lingering cold stays behind in Surrey.