Well it was just the skin that came with x cart. If you have a look here it was the Vivid Dreams - Aquamarine skin
http://www.x-cart.com/news/free-skin-templates-for-online-stores.html
I don't really understand what happened. as you can see from the original skin, the blue shaded part is on the skin, but I did something wierd and it disappeared! so now I'm just trying to get it back
I'm guessing that the length, height and other dimensions etc. are still in my code somewhere, or maybe I've overwritten them?
Thanks for the info re image file size, I'm guessing thats bad for download times and stuff if the images are too big? Any suggestions for a good online image optimiser? Will get to that v. soon.
Now that I look at the skin again, I could probably just have the search box, mag glass and Advanced Search a little lower down and keep it in the dark blue box to the left. Anyone tell me how to move it down a little?
Re CSS changes. thanks so much for the link, i will have a good read of it for homework tonight. I have downloaded the Google bugger thing and I can sort of work out that it shows you the templates and highlights what parts of the page and how they are represented in code. That link will be a great help. Thanks.