Kate Middleton's cravings: Is she shopping for three?

Amid growing talk that she’s pregnant, the Duchess of Cambridge is doing all she can to cling to her former life… even heading to the local supermarket.

With speculation of a royal pregnancy reaching fever pitch around the globe, the Duchess of Cambridge last week stocked up on an extra-large load of household groceries at her local supermarket. As she stacked breakfast cereal, ice-cream and orange juice on the check-out counter at the Tesco in Holyhead, North Wales, fellow shoppers wondered whether Kate could be buying up to indulge pregnancy cravings. Dressed in a bulky turtleneck jumper and black jeans, any baby bump was kept well under wraps, so there was to be no confirmation – official or otherwise – of US magazine Life & Style’s claim that Kate is eight weeks pregnant.

Other American tabloids are full of similar stories, with Star insisting the duchess is expecting twins, while Globe reports a baby girl will be born next year. Kate’s continual touching of her stomach at public events has been seen to give credence to these rumours, as has her refusal to eat peanut butter while on a recent visit to Denmark. (Though there is no evidence that eating peanuts while pregnant can cause allergies in an unborn child, some women avoid them “just in case”.)

What is certain is that, seven months after her marriage to Prince William, the woman who was once so embarrassed by the nickname “commoner Kate” is determined to hold onto as many “normal” aspects of her former life as she can. Though she could easily have her groceries delivered or send a servant to search the shelves for her, this down-to-earth duchess insists on doing her own shopping at her local supermarket.

And while the biggest names in the fashion world are begging to lay their latest collections on her palace doorstep, Kate continues to buy clothes from the same stores she visited as a Marlborough College schoolgirl – and she even carries the bags herself! Although many in her privileged position would be primped and pampered in private, Kate enjoys getting her hair styled at her local London hairdresser, Richard Ward, thinking nothing of sitting in the window of the salon with rollers in her locks.