After being given a teddy bear as a gift, the Duchess said: “Thank you, I’ll take that for my d ...” She stopped herself before going any further, but when a well-wisher asked if she was in the process of saying “daughter” she replied: “We’re not telling.” 
 
 The Duchess, who is due to give birth in July, also claimed not to know the sex of her baby, who will one day be monarch, but her comment will be seized upon by royal watchers the world over who are eager for any clues about whether she is expecting a boy or a girl. Precedent dictates that the sex of royal babies is never announced in advance. 
 
 The Duchess also said her baby had been kicking “very much” and joked to a fan that she might have to wait a long time before she is queen. 
 
 On only her third day of official engagements this year, the Duchess visited the National Fishing Heritage Centre in the Lincolnshire port, where she went on a walkabout among the 2,000-strong crowd who had waited up to six hours in freezing fog for her arrival. 
 
 Diana Burton, 41, handed the Duchess a white teddy bear, which the Duchess accepted with a smile. 
 
 Sandra Cook, 67, who was next to her in the crowd, said: “I distinctly heard her say 'thank you, I’ll take that for my d ...’ then she stopped herself. I said to her: 'You were going to say daughter weren’t you?’ and she said 'No, we don’t know’. 
 
 “I said 'Oh I think you do’, to which she said: 'We’re not telling’.” 
 
 Mrs Cook, who had been waiting three hours for the Duchess’s arrival, said: “It was worth every cold minute of the wait. She is just beautiful and so lovely and friendly.” 
 
 Bobbie Brown, a 42-year-old Sainsbury’s shop worker who was also in the crowd, said: “I asked her if the baby had been moving or kicking and she said 'Yes it is, very much so.’” 
 
 The well-wishers were kept waiting for 70 minutes longer than expected because the Duchess had opted to fly to Grimsby by helicopter rather than taking the train, and thick fog prevented her leaving London on time. 
 
 St James’s Palace defended the decision to use the Royal Flight’s helicopter, at a cost of up to £4,000, rather than buying train tickets for £216 return, which would have enabled the Duchess to arrive in good time for her first engagement of the day. 
 
 A palace spokesman said: “A number of factors are always taken into account when considering royal travel arrangements, including what the member of the Royal family is doing before and after the engagements, and it was decided that the best way to travel was by the Royal Flight helicopter.” 
 
 (PA) 
 
 As she arrived at the National Fishing Heritage Centre the Duchess was introduced to dignitaries including the Labour MP Austin Mitchell and his wife Linda McDougall, who had bumped into the Duchess in a London branch of Top Shop a week earlier. 
 
 Mrs McDougall said: “She was looking at jeans and tops in Top Shop. I reminded her that we’d met in there and she said 'I bought a few things’. No one else in the shop realised it was her, she was wearing a sheepskin coat and boots, with no make-up, and I was amazed to bump into her there.” 
 
 The Duchess, whose pregnancy bump was covered by a favourite brown Hobbs coat and a Great Plains dress, later visited a fire station in Grimsby, where the invited guests included patients from a local hospice. 
 
 Claire Moss-Smith, 86, told her: “I’m waiting for you to be Queen.” The Duchess replied: “You might be waiting a long time!” 
 
 She was given a bouquet by 11-year-old Evie Oxley, whose father, a fireman, is being treated for cancer and whose mother has recently been given the all-clear from breast cancer. 
 
 She said: “The Duchess said I had been very brave, with my Dad being poorly. It’s tough at times but you just have to get over it sometimes and just be brave. If you’re not brave then the person that’s ill is not going to be brave either.” ||||| Telltale sign: The Duchess of Cambridge couldn't stop touching her stomach 
 
 Maybe she was just feeling a bit peckish – but the Duchess of Cambridge has fuelled rumours that she may be pregnant by repeatedly touching her stomach during a Royal visit. 
 
 
 
 The 29-year-old was seen patting or holding her stomach at least a dozen times during a two-hour visit to an aid centre in Copenhagen. 
 
 
 
 Kate has already sparked pregnancy rumours by declining to eat peanut paste on her trip – as expectant mothers are advised not to eat peanuts in case it triggers an allergy in their child. 
 
 Kate was seen shooting Prince William a knowing look and grinning as she turned down the paste, intended for children hit by the East African famine. An aide confirmed: ‘There was no reason for her not tasting it, she does not have an allergy.’ 
 
 
 
 The Duchess’s choice of outfit also contributed to talk that she might be hiding a baby bump. Her claret coat from High Street store LK Bennett seemed a size too large for her and bunched at the back. 
 
 Reed-thin in an elegant red coat and high-heeled boots, Kate was on her first humanitarian overseas trip with Prince William on Wednesday when she was offered the paste. 
 
 
 
 She politely declined and watched her husband as he ate the sample, a staple of UNICEF packages handed out in areas suffering from famine. 
 
 The Danish Crown Prince Frederik and his wife Mary also ate the paste. 
 
 Doctors recommend pregnant women avoid peanuts and peanut by products while expecting in order to prevent the development of allergies in their babies-to-be. 
 
 ‘It was very odd,’ remarked one onlooker. ‘Kate would not stop touching her tummy – it was very noticeable. She continually patted it and held her hands against it. She must have been doing it without realising, and at one point she had both her hands cradling her stomach. 
 
 
 
 Her coat was also rather large. It looked loose below her waist, so she might well have been trying to hide something.’ 
 
 Rumour mill: Kate and Prince William were given samples of UNICEF aid packages to taste on Wednesday with Kate politely refusing to sample peanut paste 
 
 Official duty: Kate and William looked animated and interested as they visited UNICEF Supply Division in Copenhagen, Denmark with Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark earlier this week 
 
 Sources close to Kate say that she is ‘keen’ to start a family, but a spokesman said: ‘We would not confirm or deny any pregnancy rumours.’ 
 
 
 
 Last month, Commonwealth leaders agreed to reform the succession laws so William and Kate’s first born will be monarch, even if the child is a girl 
 
 WHY PREGNANT WOMEN AVOID EATING PEANUTS 
 
 Since the 1990s, women have been advised to avoid eating peanuts during pregnancy and while breast-feeding if they or the father had a family history of allergic conditions. 
 
 Parents have also been recommended not to give peanuts to children until they are at least three years old to avoid sensitisation. 
 
 The advice had been in place since 1998 and was partly blamed for the rise of 'nut hysteria', with parents and children becoming increasingly anxious about exposure to peanuts. 
 
 But in 2008 the Food Safety Agency said it would no longer back the advice because 'current evidence' does not support it. 
 
 Instead, the FSA said those at higher risk should not change their diets while emphasising that this is not a green light for peanuts to be included in meals for young children and pregnant women. 
 
 The change, which was officially adopted by government in 2009, came amid a growing change of view among scientists, medics and policy-makers, who believe avoiding peanuts in early life may be making the problem worse. 
 
 In the past 20 years the number of British children with a peanut allergy has nearly doubled, with one in 55 being diagnosed with it. 
 
 The young royals spent their day in Copenhagen learning more about the situation in drought-stricken East Africa, touring the UN facility and even helping pack cardboard boxes of supplies. 
 
 The couple also enjoyed a private meeting with UNICEF donors and supporters, including British actor Sir Roger Moore, who has been a global goodwill ambassador for the charity for more than 20 years. 
 
 They then went to watch a British Airways mercy flight, headed for Nairobi, being loaded at Copenhagen International Airport, before themselves boarding a scheduled flight with the airline home. 
 
 Today's speculation comes a week after the British parliament overturned 300 years of historic rule, giving girls born to members of the Royal Family equal rights with boys in the succession to the throne. 
 
 
 
 The reforms mean the if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's first child is a girl, she will take precedence over any younger brothers in the order of succession. 
 
 
 
 Prime Minister David Cameron struck the deal to scrap male primogeniture by thrashing out an agreement with Commonwealth leaders. 
 
 Mr Cameron said the historic rules were 'at odds with the modern countries that we have become'. 
 
 Announcing the proposed changes, he said: 'Put simply, if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a little girl, that girl would one day be our queen.' 
 
 Radiant: Kate's red coat and belt won her many admirers on her recent trip 
 
 Mercy mission: The Duke and Duchess joined Frederik, 42, and his glamorous Australian-born wife Mary, 39 in publicising the crisis in Africa
– Is Duchess Kate expecting a little girl? At a public appearance yesterday, she gave what some are calling a hint about the sex of her baby, the AP reports. When someone handed her a teddy bear as a gift, Kate said, "Thank you, I'll take that for my d—" and then stopped herself. Asked if she was about to say "daughter," all Kate would say was, "We're not telling," the Telegraph reports. She claimed she doesn't even know the sex of the baby due in July, but her slip of the tongue was enough to get Britain's tabloids declaring, "It's a girl!" in today's papers. Royal precedent dictates that the baby's gender will be kept a secret until birth, the Telegraph notes. Also at yesterday's appearance, Kate revealed that the little one is kicking "very much."