Thank you so much for your warm compliments – and for the information on your intriguing situation. I know from my own time living in France that the natives are extremely wary of extending social opportunities to newcomers. In fairness, this does seem to apply to French newcomers as well as to us ‘etrangers’.

As for being cousins, if you can trace your line back to Nancy Coulson, listed in 1861 as a charwoman of Bridlington, Yorks, then we’re definitely related.

Bonne chance! Christopher

I found your site quite by chance and quite by chance also is the coincidence of our same surname! Distant cousins, perhaps?

Seriously though, I found this particular article you have written not only very interesting but more importantly extremely helpful. I’m not what you would call gifted by any manner of means, but I am creative by nature and admit being hyper-sensitive to insult and injury. At age 65 (in 2 days time), I have now totally withdrawn from social situations (not difficult to do as I now live in France and find trying to improve my French very difficult owing to hearing damaged in Army service and Tinitus) and I can’t stand the French anyway! Your advice on distinguishing gauche clumsiness from outright hostility is utterly brilliant and I shall do my level best to follow it as faithfully as I am able from now on.

I’ll also keep a note of (“Bookmark” is the modern term, I think) your blog site and much look forward to reading your next article.

Meanwhile, from one Coulson to another, keep up the good work!

With kind regards,

Graham.