Barbara Walters returning to 'The View' next week

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NEW YORK, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Barbara Walters, who has been recovering for weeks from a concussion and the chicken pox, says she plans to return to her New York chat show "The View" Monday.

"Hello, my darlings," Walters said when she called into the program Tuesday morning. "I'm so glad to be talking to you. ... I really miss you."

"Like it or not, I'm coming back on the show again," Walters said. "No more chicken pox. ... I haven't been contagious for a while, but they wanted me to have rest, and I've had enough rest and I'm ready to come back."

The 83-year-old ABC News veteran has been absent from "The View" since Jan. 22 when she was first briefly hospitalized after a fall in Washington where she was attending a party ahead of President Barack Obama's second inauguration.

Walters has said she fainted and hit her head while at the British ambassador's residence, cutting her temple. She was taken to the hospital where she received six stitches. The following week, "The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg announced on the show Walters had been diagnosed with the chicken pox.