I retired from my 35y+ career job in 2006, just before turning 57. It was a couple of years earlier than my initial plan, but I decided to decline a request to transfer to Canberra and the finance manager had used my success in obtaining grants to try to screw just that bit too much in the next cycle, which ended in rejection, as I had predicted.
A mate of mine, whom I had some collaborative work with in his big international company, had left there a couple of years previously to start his own business and it was growing nicely. So I jumped to that on the proviso of six weeks annual leave, so as to continue and expand my annual DONEx experiences.
As we recruited more young people and they started stepping up, I dropped back to 4, then 3, days/week.
At the outset, I told my mate that my continuation was open-ended, subject to health.
So, following a prostate cancer diagnosis in 2011, I dropped back to working casually. As it turned out, the monitoring 'active surveillance' regime showed that the low-grade/small focus PCa didn't require treatment until the grade changed in 2018 and out it came.
Meanwhile, my DONEx's had grown in duration to be more around the 12-16 week mark, with various additional point-to-point trips using points redemptions mostly for EK F & J and QR J flights.
So, very much a phasing into retirement, which I think is key. The last bit of casual work was as recently as 2021, so in my early 70s.
Covid was not so challenging in WA. I bought a 4WD early in the piece and did a huge amount of travelling within the large land area open to us, so I can't complain too much about that, albeit having to cancel a big DONEx planned for 2020.
