css problems: sidebar padding and placement

I’m a couple of problems with a theme I’m working on.

Firstly, there is a gap between the header and the content. Secondly, I can’t seem to move/place the text that is inside the sidebar.

The current status can be seen here: http://www.alpinevisions.dryfly.ca/

The style css has the following:
.secondary {
position: relative;
text-align: left;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

If I change the padding-top for this class to something like 10px, the sidebar content drops down and the image inside the primary class moves up against the header. I don’t understand why this happens and hope someone can offer guidance. I’m guessing I need some type of float or display:inline somewhere.

Secondly, changing the padding in .secondary does not move the text left or right. I would like to move the text to the right a bit, and I though padding-left would do this. Again, any ideas on this would be appreciated.

thanks