BBC Radio 2 presenter Zoe Ball quipped “I have wandered back” and asked listeners “How was your Brat summer?” as she returned to hosting the breakfast show following an on-air absence.

Ball, 53, has not been on air hosting The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show since she briefly returned on August 8, following a summer break.

Returning on Monday morning, she dubbed herself the “happy wanderer” saying: “I have wandered back. How was your Brat summer? Was it marvellous? Have you been enjoying summer?

“We did that back in the 90s, it was called something different then… bringing back memories.”

She added: “I hope you’ve been enjoying some of the gorgeous sunsets over the last couple of weeks. It’s a tad soggy our end this morning. Take it easy out on the roads…”.

Ball, who is the BBC’s highest paid on-air female star, thanked her colleague and fellow radio presenter Scott Mills for “looking after you for the last few weeks”, and added: “I love you, Scott. More on that later.”

Mills was recently announced as the winner of the BBC’s Celebrity Race Across The World alongside his husband Sam Vaughan.

After playing Earth, Wind & Fire’s September, she read out a message from a listener and responded, saying: “No, I didn’t go to Turkey for new face and teeth”.

She confirmed her return to work in a post on X on Sunday, writing: “Back on breakfast @bbcradio2 tomorrow morning at 6:30.”

In April, Ball announced the death of her mother, Julia Peckham, writing in an Instagram post: “We are bereft without you but will hold so tight to each other.”

Ball took over the Radio 2 morning programme in 2019 from Chris Evans.

She was the first female host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show in 1998, a post she held until 2000.