My stay at a £6,000 hiking retreat loved by Hollywood.

The Ranch is so elite that you have to sign an NDA to stay there

- Madeleine Spencer

LET'S go around the table and each share something we're grateful for," says our guide Greg, as we sit down to eat a plant-based dinner on our first night at The Ranch. The table is huge, and around it sits a motley - and moneyed group of around 20 of California's most successful people (the NDAI signed prevents me from divulging more details). Frantically searching my mind for something to say I'm grateful for, but which doesn't make me want to dissolve in embarrassment, I vaguely, in a panic-stricken haze, hear the answers trickling in. "I'm so grateful for my partner, who is looking after my vineyard while I am here," says one man.

Others talk about their families, past travels, and a great many are grateful to be at The Ranch. I'm just formulating my response something about being afforded a week away from my usual routine - when our guide offers his: "I am so grateful to have lost fat and gained muscle in the year I've lived here. It's been really humbling to see my body change." Enter earnest applause, and the first but definitely not last time during my trip that I feel cripplingly British and profoundly aware that I'm in the deepest clutches of LA excess.