Music... strike, strum or pluck?

I play a number of musical instruments - some more recently (and proficiently) than others - but with the prospect of me actually being able to access the piano again when I move it out to the garden cabin, I've been thinking about other musical pursuits...

So having been disappointed that I couldn't fit my guitar in the car when we went to Scotland a couple of years ago, I was delighted at finding a piano in the house (same make and model as mine) which coaxed my rather lumpy fingers back to tickling the ivories. The problem I've had with the piano has been physical accessibility (it's under Dave's desk) and the problem with the guitar has been the terror of ripping all the skin off my fingers again, following a serious and prolonged bout of dishydrotic eczema a few years ago. Though I do still play from time to time, I don't play enough to build up any decent calluses.
Having decided I am going to relocate the piano to a more accessible location (the cabin) I suddenly wondered if I might try a different tack with the "sit singing around the campfire" kind of music. Inspired by Tomas starting to write Empire songs again and his love of folk music, shanties and the like, I wondered whether the harp might be a good outlet. No need to bear down and create calluses, and already being able to play the piano and guitar should give me a decent head start in learning it. And I need to be able to look back in 20 years' time and tell people what I learned in lockdown (other than carrying on going to work every day, but that's a whole different style of blog post...).
I had a quick squizz on Amazon and Ebay to get an idea of prices and was quite surprised to see you could get harps for under £200 (mind you, the first hit was £24,999, but I don't want a concert grade 47 string pedal harp...).
Then I started having a proper look around and it got complicated. Pedals - definitely not. Levers - what were those and did I need them? Full levers, partial levers; number of strings (a 4 string harp seems a little pointless to me), country of manufacture... help!
There were a few things I picked up quite quickly. Yes, I did want levers if I didn't want to be stuck in a single key, and if I went for limited ones (C and F) I would be stuck with only 3 keys. Don't buy a Pakistani import - people on the internet were being quite rude about those. Number of strings was about range (decided that I didn't want fewer than 22 for a 3-octave range) and portability - more strings made it harder to play the harp on your lap (not wanting to have to be formally sitting...). The minimum you need to take the grade exams is 34 (sometimes you can get away with 27), but I have the t-shirt for music exams and am only intending to play for pleasure - and folk/pop rather than classical (which was another consideration for pedals vs levers).
So armed with a couple of days of Google education I went back and started looking for instruments. It became quite apparent that harps are expensive. I also discounted Ebay and Amazon, as I thought it would be better to buy from a shop where I could develop a customer relationship. I settled initially on the 22 string Heather harp from the Early Music Shop (EMS). It had a 3 octave range starting at the C below middle C, which I thought would be OK, but it did sound a little higher and plinky plonky-er than I really wanted. I looked at the 29 string version but that only went higher, so reverted to 22. I then Googled the harp model looking for reviews and found a few not very complimentary ones about the quality of EMS harps in general, but all the harp forums I could find tended to date back to 2014 at the most recent, so I wanted some more recent intel. I found something on Mumsnet in 2019 (not my go-to source of musical information) but decided in the end I'd stick with my research and go with the EMS.
However, this particular harp was "contact us to order" rather than "add to basket" so I emailed their sales team (having decided I didn't want to wait too long to start my new hobby). I asked about lead times on the 22 string Heather harp and had a prompt reply (on a Saturday night) that they were expecting stock in 5-6 weeks. In the meantime though I had a look at other 22 string harps on their site and found a "Heritage student" model for the same price (£350), but with a slightly lower range (A2 to A5). It also had plastic levers so I asked about that one (didn't like the sound of plastic levers). I had a prompt response to my enquiry (Sunday morning by now) talking about the non-student version of the Heritage harp and offering me a substantial discount. I decided to go for it. It was more than I was initially thinking of spending on my new hobby, but I gathered from my research that with harps, you very much get what you pay for, so I'll let you know what happens.