Grief, vulnerability, and hope

For the four weeks prior to writing this editorial in mid-January, I have been on annual leave and have been determined to take those days for rest and recreation. So-called false leave has patterned my summers in past years, but I made a conscious decision in December 2020 that such practice was personally counterproductive, professionally unwise because of what it may convey to staff in my care, and industrially and ethically problematic. Yet, I understand both why I have engaged in false leave in the past and why significant numbers of people do so, academic geographers and colleagues not least among them. So, I make these observations with no judgement intended.