Initial broken layout, refresh fixes it (IE)

hi there, I’ve designed a simple site with the navigation sitting in a small column on the left and the main content on the right. Each is in its own <div> and then floated to get the two columns.

All seems to be working in Firefox and the latest NN, but it breaks in IE and also Opera. Curiously, the first time you view the page in IE, the body content is beneath the navigation column, rather than alongside it. In IE clicking refresh corrects the problem, and then even clearing the cache doesn’t cause the problem to reappear when refreshed again.
In Opera, it doesn’t get fixed at all.

Does anyone know what might be causing this? I’ve read that defining the width of a block alongside a float can cause problems – will it be something to do with this?

I’d *really* appreciate any help on this
thanks,

Essentially everything in the page is contained with:
.holder {
position: absolute;
top: 60px;
}

and the main right column is contained within:
.body_content {
margin-top: 30px;
width: 500px;
float: left;
position: relative;
}

and the left hand column is in:
.buttons {
float: left;
position: relative;
width: 193px;
}

Also in #CSS _↴