Thanks to everyone for these helpful and insightful comments.

Kevin, George, Josie you’re absolutely right. The pizzicato bridge thing seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps I’ll put it to the vote, but my guess is that it could be on the way out.
If anything, it’s the restart that jars – could try fading that in I suppose…..

Steve I can tone down the strings during verse #2 – that way perhaps they’ll stand out better in the ‘solo’ verse after verse #3

Yes John – I could indeed experiment with other more, er, orchestral sounds. Don’t know why I went strings only on this one.
hmmm 2 semitone upward key changes are a little bit of a trademark with me.
Eventually all these tunes will finish up on my second album and we can’t have all of them finishing in a different key from the one they started in (or it will sound like the Eurovision song contest!)

Well anyway thanks again and, future contributors, let me know if you would chop down the bridge.

Regards,

Marc