1) Yes, sidebar images were too many; but I saw you took care of that.
2) In theory, you can add as many images as you like to a slideshow.
3) I answered the "KEY" question before you asked it - see above!

that's it I promise (for now)

seriously, thanks for the advice mate

Now, GIFs resized or cropped lose the animation - that's why I said make sure all the images are in the right size for Structure (960×120 px). If by "specific post" you mean set the GIF as a featured image, so that it'll show up on the front page, it can't be done: the cropper crops the image even if it's in the right dimensions. If you mean insert it as a regular image, so that you'll see it when you view that complete post alone, again you can't use the same one you'll have created for the header, as the main column is narrower: you'll need to create smaller versions of the images (maximum width 640 px), turn those into a new animated GIF, and upload and insert that GIF (selecting the Full Size option). Or you can simply upload all the original images to the post (without inserting them) and turn them into a real slideshow:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/slideshows/

By the way, your blog takes too long to load; check the first two replies here please:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/more-blog-post-visible-at-the-same-time?replies=4

- plus I'm a dunce at that sort of thing - but I would like to give it a try

But micah's suggestion is for displaying a different header image on each one of your static pages. I thought you asked about a slideshow-style header image for your blog in general.

And please link to your blog when asking questions. Or (better) make your username link to your blog (Users > Personal Settings: scroll down to Account Details, paste your blog URL in the Website field, click Save Changes).

Good luck!

You could use the classes WordPress generates for each page to have a different header image for each page, though. To do that you would add this to your CSS stylesheet:
.page-id-107 #header h1 a, #header h1 a:visited {<br /> background: url("http://peterbowes.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/cropped-bj13.jpg") no-repeat scroll center top transparent;<br /> }

You would make one of those for each page you want to have a different header image. You would change the 107 to the page id for that page, and of course the file path to the header image you want for that page.

To find the page id of a given page, go to the pages editor and click on the page in question. In the address bar of your browser, it will show something like this: http://username.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=17&action=edit. The part that says, "post=1" is what you're looking for. In this case, the page id is 17. Hopefully that makes sense.

- I have all these header pics which would go very nicely if there was a way to flick them over - like a slide show..
Can be done .. ?