Talk about on again off again... this blog is only a few days old and I'm already tired of the original theme I chose for it.  So, it was back to the 'drawing board', or in this case the themes section of drupal.org where after just a few minutes of searching, I downloaded and installed the colourise theme.
I made few minor adjustments to the layout using the handy included 'custom.css' and upladed my own background image...  and done!
So far, I love it!