World

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Britain's Kate Duchess of Cambridge holds onto the hand of her husband Prince William, left, as she bends down to pull the heel of her shoe out of a drainage grill after it got stuck.(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

The Duchess of Cambridge says she doesn't know the sex of her first child, but she hopes it's a boy.

Her husband Prince William, however, would prefer a girl.

The former Kate Middleton, who is five months pregnant, made the revelation to a soldier Sunday at a St. Patrick's Day ceremony honouring the Irish Guards.

Guardsman Lee Wheeler said the duchess told him: "I'd like to have a boy and William would like a girl."

The duchess wore a green dress coat and a shamrock lapel pin as she presented sprigs of shamrock to soldiers in the annual ceremony at a barracks in Aldershot, southern England.

She suffered a minor mishap when one of her high heels became briefly stuck in a drainage grille.