In reply to Paula.

Not a bother at all. Sorry I've taken a few days to respond. As far as drop caps, I had no idea so I searched a little and it seems the conventional wisdom is it's ok to include the punctuation. It's recommended to include the quotation marks by none other than Robert Bringhurst who wrote the The Elements of Typographic Style and knows far more about typography than I do. You can adjust the size of the quotes to suit your site.

As for your second question, I would need to see your code. Giving the body a little padding is the right approach. If you want to send me your css code, I'll take a look and see if I can spot something. Or if the page is online send me a link and I'll take a quick look.