Ugly old woman carrying pole and sack causes delay (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
hang fire
'delay' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'ugly old woman carrying pole and sack' is the wordplay.
'ugly old woman' becomes 'hag' (I've seen this before).
'carrying' is an insertion indicator.
'pole' becomes 'n'.
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'sack' becomes 'fire' ('fire' can be a synonym of 'sack'**).
'hag' going around 'n' is 'hang'.
'hang'+'fire'='HANG FIRE'
'causes' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hang fire that I've seen before include "Delay taking action" , "Hold back" , "Delay before acting" .)