Basic installation tutorial?

Total newbie question, so bear with me!

I'm having problems getting this module working, even with the most basic of Drupal 5.5 installs.

I've read through all the documentation, comments and support requests.

Here's what I tried:

- installed basic Drupal 5.5 package on local web server - works fine
- created a simple taxonomy structure with a few nested terms
- created a couple of nodes (default story content type) categorised in this taxonomy
- then used the "taxonomy menu" module to create a menu block to navigate the tree
- created a single primary menu item "Food" linking to the root category of the taxonomy (this is the menu item I want to be highlighted by menu trails)
- added the "bare bones" theme (based on Zen) from this page: http://neemtree.com.au/drupal-theming-designers
- activated this theme as the default, so that I can edit template.php
- installed and activated "menu trails" module
- copied code snippet from menu trails module into template.php and saved - made sure it was in the right place by reading other support requests/comments
- configured menu trails module in admin/settings so that parent item for the "story" node is "Primary Links > Food"
- similarly, parent item for all categories in the taxonomy I created above is also "Primary Links > Food"

When I browse the taxonomy tree menu created by "taxonomy menu" the "Food" primary menu item should be highlighted - right? It wasn't.

Same for the two nodes I created - I am expecting that when these nodes are viewed, the primary menu item "Food" should be highlighted.

What am I doing wrong?

Can anyone offer a step by step tutorial from a fresh drupal installation on how to set this up for someone with scant knowledge of PHP and theming?

I just need to get the basics sorted, so that I build on this with a more complex Drupal config.

Many thanks!