Kate Middleton visits Liverpool on Valentine's Day

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 14, ARMENPRESS: The Duchess of Cambridge has marked Valentine's Day with a solo engagement in Liverpool with her husband almost 8,000 miles away, as her outfit became an immediate hit with shoppers, Armenpress reports citing The Telegraph.

While her husband, Prince William, continues a six-week tour of duty in the Falklands as an RAF search and rescue pilot, the Duchess is utilising her spare time by developing her fledgling career as a working royal.

Her visits to Alder Hey Children's Hospital and an Action on Addiction project, the non-alcoholic Brink bar in Liverpool, are her second major solo public appearance.

Fans gathered outside The Brink to get a glimpse of the duchess and applauded when she arrived, braced agaisnt the cold in a long burgundy coat.

As well as the woollen coat by Hobbs, which was just below the knee, the Duchess wore black high-heeled shoes, black tights, and held a black handbag. The Hobbs Unlimited Celeste wool coat sold out within hours.

Fashion expert Gemma Cartwright, of OSOYOU.com, said: "It's interesting that when I looked this morning it was available in two sizes, and has sold out now.

"The price was originally £369, and people are suggesting that is what she paid for it, but when they were available earlier today, the price had been reduced to £182."

The coat, which flares from the hips, has a belt at the waist.

Royal officials said the coat was burgundy in colour, though the fashion community favoured chestnut brown.

Grandmother Kathleen Cummins, 65, from Liverpool city centre, said of the visit: "It is a boost for the city and especially this bar here helping people.

"I used to work in care in the community myself and people look at drug addicts and people with drink problems and they just think they are nobodies, but they're all somebody's son and they need help.

"It is one of the Princess's charities and I'm just really pleased that she is

Asked whether she thought Kate would be missing William on Valentine's Day, Mrs Cummins said: "She will most probably have a big bouquet waiting for her, won't she?

"He will make up for it when he comes home."

The duchess will be presented with a Valentine's Day card and roses today - by an eight-year-old boy.

Jacquie Johnston-Lynch, head of service for the charity Action on Addiction in Liverpool, was welcoming Kate to The Brink - a dry bar for recovering alcoholics - in the city.

Her son Jaqson Johnston-Lynch, aged eight, was chosen to present the Duchess with a bouquet of red roses, a cupcake and a Valentine's Day card.

Speaking shortly before the Royal's arrival, he said: "I have wrote in the card 'Dear Kate, Happy Valentine's Day, I love you, from Jaqson'.

"I'm also giving her some flowers, red roses, and little cupcake.

Jaqson, who attends St Vincent de Paul School in Liverpool, said he had a little speech prepared.

"I'm going to say 'Happy Valentine's Day, your Royal Highness. I'm sorry Prince William can't be here'."

The duchess will also help make a non-alcoholic drink, a smoothie named The Duchess in her honour.

It comprises almonds, honey, a dash of cream and banana.

She is to meet Aimee Haswell, a seven-year-old girl suffering from a rare heart condition.

Aimee, who was diagnosed with a rare type of congenital heart disease, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, when she was just nine days old.

The Duchess, who carried out her first solo public engagement last week when she visited the National Portrait Gallery in London for a preview of a Lucian Freud show, will be given a tour of Alder Hey's burns and oncology units and will also visit Ronald McDonald House, which provides free accommodation for the families of some of the hospital's sickest children, as well as The Brink bar.

She paid a secret visit to the headquarters of Action on Addiction, one of the four charities of which she is patron, earlier this month.