Thanks for laying out the welcome mat everyone. Since I posted initially I've had another go at manual even going so far as making up a chart and adding comments to the different settings I've listed. Outdoors is not TOO much of a problem but I struggle with indoor shooting. The kit lenses are all but useless indoors and have been relegated to the bottom of my bag leaving me with my nifty fifty.
Herein lies the problem. MANUAL MODE DOES NOT WORK FOR ME INDOORS. I invariably revert back to the trusty AV mode and set it to F/2.8 and the WB on auto, bump up the ISO and let the shutter do it's thing but my shots still come out disappointing (you know the ones : orange, bluish tinge etc. etc.) The other WB settings have little or no effect. To try and compensate I have one of those white cards and try to custom the WB. Sometimes it works and sometimes not.
Ideally I'd love to post some of these images for you all to see and make comment but I must confess I haven't a clue as to how to go about it. As for post editing - all I have is the canon program that came with the camera and it I took me ages to figure that out. No photoshop, lightroom or the like. And shooting in RAW - that just plain scares me.
So, am I beyond help?