Sandi Toksvig brings her live show to Canberra in November

So is talking to her. We're Zooming ahead of her Australian tour which kicks off in Canberra on November 12. She's been to Australia before, but never toured with a show; this one seems as inviting as one of her hugs.

"My aim in the show is that you feel better when you leave then you did when you arrived," she says.

"I just want everyone to have a good time."

She says the show is a mix of stories, jokes and perhaps even a parlour game or two.

"And I love a bit of history, I always look to see what's happened on that day, what we can learn from history. There's just a good general mix."

Which is also how she describes her life. Born in Denmark in 1958, she spent most of her early life in the United States. Her father was a foreign correspondent and she credits much of her curiosity to his influence.

"I come from a long line of writers and journalists on my father's side," she says.

"It was kind of hard to walk down the street with my dad, with him going 'Oh, look at that, that's interesting'.

"He would always notice something even on the most boring suburban street ... my poor children now, I fear I do the same thing to them."

She was back in England to study at Cambridge University, where her comedy career began, there around the same time as Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

"This is how old I am, my darling [and she says darling a lot and I don't mind one bit] ... I performed on the very first night of the Comedy Store in London.

"It was 1980 and there was no such thing as stand up, it's hard for anyone to imagine now, we just stood there and told a few jokes.

"We didn't know you could become famous, we didn't know it might become a job, we just did it because it seemed like fun."

She says stand up is more serious now because "everyone thinks they're going to get a Netflix series".

"In those days we played for free beer, if I got some free beer from the boss I'd had a really good night."

Toksvig is reticent to call herself a comedian. She's a writer, broadcaster, political activist (having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015), author, wife, mother, lesbian.

"I don't like to define myself, I don't think there's any need," she says.

"I think we should be more like children and go, 'Oh, that looks interesting, and that looks interesting' and do all sorts of interesting things.

"I never Google myself, I'm not on social media, I don't know how other people describe me, but I'm interested in the world and hopefully making it a bit more fun and a bit more interesting."

She says she's always been one to say yes to things.

"If somebody says do you want to go do something you've never done before I say yes.

"I horrified my wife, we were on holiday in Costa Rica and I discovered a hotel that you could only get to by whitewater rafting.

"Now, I'm a bit too short for whitewater rafting because I can't actually, from the seat, block my feet against anything, I'm not tall enough. She said, why on earth have you booked that? And I said, well, because we haven't done it before. It was great. I wouldn't do it again."

One of her most recent television series is Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig for Channel 4, available here in Australia on the ABC's iView. In this delightful series she heads off on adventures with other women, searching out some of the United Kingdom's best weekends away. In one episode Toksvig and former fellow Great British Bake Off host Prue Leith unlock the Cotswold's hidden hideaways.

I can't help but bring up Bake Off with Toksvig. I tell her it was like one of her hugs during lockdown as I found that solace in that mix of flour, eggs and butter.

She joined Bake Off in 2017 alongside Noel Fielding, replacing Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. In January 2020 she announced she was leaving, replaced by Matt Lucas.

One of my favourite contestants Henry Bird, from season 19, said of the departure.

"On a show such as Bake Off you need someone like Sandi. She's like the friend that you invite round for Christmas lunch, the one who keeps the conversation sparkling, props up the cook, humours the teenagers and defuses the family tensions all in one go," he wrote in The Times.

"[Working with her] made me realise that Sandi is one of those rare people in life who has the ability to put their mind to almost anything and absolutely knock it out of the park."

Even though she says she's seen enough ganache to last a lifetime, she says she might consider having a look at a cake I offer to bake for her when she arrives in Canberra.

In turn, she's keen to find out more about women's history in the nation's capital. She's already discovered the educational walks run by She Shapes History and I suggest Changemakers at the Museum of Australian Democracy.

Sounds like a pretty fair trade to me. I might even throw in a hug.