Day to day musings of a cat minder/ sitter in North Tyneside and Newcastle upon Tyne . For details of services go to http://www.catminders.biz

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Welcome to CatMinders


Saturday 10 July 2010

Back from Holidays

We return from relaxing holidays in the early hours of Thursday  having closely followed the story of Raoul Moat on Sky News , to hear that Mr Moat is eventually involved in a stand-off with Police near the river bank last night .

We receive a telephone call that our friend Steve Hall who is also cycling round UK to raise awareness of the plight of refugees across the world , following in the footsteps of Bjorn Heidenstrom who stayed with us last year , had not arrived at the latest leg of his journey in Hexham .The Shirt 2010 Steve was due to stay in Hexham where a friend of a friend had kindly agreed to offer a bed for the night before he would come on to us .
Later in the morning we received a call to say that Steve had had an accident on the A69 and had been taken to hospital by police and ambulance . Frantic calls led to D tracking him down finally late last night and it was at 11 pm therefore that D saw him and then left him still parked up on a trolley in a hospital corridor in Accident and Emergency with broken ribs and possible head injury waiting for an observation bed.

I fell asleep watching Sky News where Mr Moat was surrounded by Police and with a gun to his head .

The wierdest part of all this was hearing that at the start of the stand off a local man was apparently fishing in the river just metres away from where Moat was holding a gun to his head .
Later , Paul Gascoigne appeared on the scene with food parcels for Raoul Moat declaring himself a pal from former times , presumably from Mr Moats days as a bouncer . Gazza  was interviewed on Real Radio and , slurring somewhat said Mr Moat was a real gentleman and "someone must have wound him up". Indeed.
The Sky News reporter said somewhat enigmantically that most of Mr Gascoigne's interview "could not be broadcast". He was however on the scene offering to intervene.
I myself had high hopes that the two men would have a chat , there would be tears , and that would be an end to the matter .  Sadly ,it was not to be .


I was thus  horrified to wake to see footage of Mr Moat's  removal to the Newcastle General Hospital and discover that he was arriving at the same hospital as Steve . Hopefully by the time Moat arrived Steve was safely on a ward (2 15am). I suspect his confusion would not have been  helped by the armed police accompanying Mr Moat .
Questions now relate to whether Moat killed himself as a result of the firing of a taser stungun. An Independent Inquiry will follow - who fired first ? Sky News continues to buzz.

Steve is to remain in hospital at least another day .

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