nottingham-lee

hi this is my first posting on here i hope that someone can help. i have a galaxy tdi 2000 mark2 (xreg). i have got an over heating problem. this started about three days ago. when i start up from cold i only drive around 5 minites and the temp has gone up to 90c half way and there is no heat comeing from the heater just blowing cold. tipicaly the car would take around 5 miles for the temp gage to even move and start to blow warm. but now its moveing to to half way very qwicly. if im driveing around town it will stay like this. but when i go onto faster roads driveing 60-70 speeds the temp gage will go into the red and it will say stop on the instrement pannel. so my first thought was to change the thermastate it was still the same so i tryed it with out. still no difference. i have flushed the rediator out with hose pipe. now im running out of ideas? could it be the water pump? when i tuke out the thermastate i could see the impeller plades inside the engine so i put my hand in there and i was able to move them. fully rotate them around. is the normal should this be possible or does it indicate a problem with the pump. can anyone help i dont want to change the pump for nuthing. thanks nottingham-lee