I lugged my bags onto the carriage, squeezed into my seat and bade farewell to familiar countryside as it began to whisk past me. "Train, heave on to Euston," warbled Morrissey though my headphones. "And do you think you've made the right decision this time?" Yes Moz, I thought, I do, I definitely do.

I'm back. After more than a year of preparation, convalescence and then limbo at my parents' house 400 miles away, I am living in London again. I've got an Oyster card and a tube map and this fortnight's edition of Time Out. I no longer say hello when I sit next to strangers on buses. By default, I suppose, this marks the most significant stage in my recovery: a return to something roughly resembling the status quo ante. When my alarm bleeped for the first time at 6:15am, I heaved myself into the shower with the benign resignation of the seasoned commuter.

I'd like to have shared all this news with you earlier, really I would, but I haven't had a moment to myself. Four days after Christmas I struggled on and off the train, then dumped my luggage at my old flat before taking off to the west country for hogmanay. In a cottage on the wonderfully-named Misery Farm near Weymouth, surrounded by friends, with the wind howling outside, I swigged from a bottle of Cava once the bells had pealed and declared that 2007 was going to be my year. Hungover and shaking off a cold, I trudged back to my temporary flat (myself and my old housemates will get a new place as soon as leases allow) in the capital before starting my new job. In between working a 40-hour week, settling in to my gaff and trips to the Neasden branch of Ikea, I've barely had time to reflect on my change in circumstances. Which is, of course, the entire point of coming back here in the first place.

As I said just after Christmas, I thoroughly enjoyed 2006. I've been, in retrospect, thoroughly privileged to spend a year out from the normal grind. For the most part I've thoroughly enjoyed myself. I'm genuinely grateful that I had both family and state support networks that allowed me to do this - had I been an American with health insurance issues to worry about I've no idea what I would have done. And though I kept myself amused with light freelance work and, of course, this blog, that nagging voice that calls itself a work ethic kept telling me that I could not claim self-affirmation until I was standing fully on my own feet again.

A few months back I answered a recruitment advert. My prospective employers called me down, first for a written test and then for an interview at the end of November. In the course of the latter I sat in collar and tie for the first time in over a year, explaining to a panel how my experience of illness had made me a better journalist. Not long after I came home from a morning run to find a missed call on my phone. The post was mine if I wanted it. I was looking for a job and then I found a job.

(At this point it would, of course, seem natural to tell you what this job is. It's nothing very exciting, but my new employer has a policy on blogs that would require me to delete any politically contentious material and label the site with myriad disclaimers if I were to identify them. I really can't be bothered doing this, so anyone who is particularly interested can contact me via here and ask).

Since then I've had so much to do I've barely had time to take stock. I've mentioned before that I don't feel fundamentally changed by my illness, and the ease with which I've (so far) slipped back into my routine would tend to confirm this. As I negotiate the rush-hour commute or sink into a pub chair at the end of the week, however, I know I have something back that has been missing since I last clocked in to an office in October 2005. I have the self-respect that comes from making my own way in the world - not a particularly spectacular achievement, but a crucial one for me nonetheless.

I'm not claiming my life is the same as it was 18 months ago when my tumour was diagnosed. I'm working in a new office and living in a different place, and as well as my new trousers and scarf I've also picked up a facial palsy and a defunct right ear. In addition I've found myself in lasting debt to the people who were there for me when I needed them. But who would see a life stood still as something with which to be content? All I have done is catch up with the rest of the world, rejoin the human race: become not a victim or an invalid or a hospital case but just a Scottish bloke who lives in north London and drinks Guinness at the weekend. I'm happy just to once again be a face in the crowd, even if that face is still slightly wonky. So it would be counter-productive to make a fanfare about it, but still. I've won.