text: Lost in the rhetoric of some of the comments...
  
  1. Phase-in retirement.  Good plan.  
  Wife and I did it back in 2009.  We weren't particularly prescient.  Neither of us could afford to retire (when I was 63; she was 56--too young!) We hadn't saved enough!  I'd been part-time in the workforce since 2005 anyway (not by choice: ageism does that!) Phase-in cushions the trauma of sudden "no work"--which tips a lot of people over the psychological edge.
  
  2. Moving.  Coupled with Sudden No Work Syndrome, comes The Big Move.  This is tough on some people. We did it, too: Alberta to BC.  "Period of adjustment" is putting it mildly--and both of us were 'coming home'.  Happily, wife continued to work part time and the move came after I'd left the workforce. See?  Phase-in.
  
  3. Note: the lady in question here TOOK HER JOB WITH HER.  Memo to house-starved Vancouverites: it can happen to you!  Son-in-law now doing the same for Richmond employer..from (lower cost) Victoria. Explore the possibility.