I give in. I confess I am a broken woman but I imagine I am not alone in my despair.

Am I the only would-be purchaser of festive fare, presents, sweetmeats and the like who has been trapped by the outbreak of holes in the road?

It is bad enough when the holes are the work of nature and the tyres of myriad cars but when they are holes dug deliberately by so-called public services, I put my weary head in my hands, swear loudly and shake my fist at the nearest inanimate object, and not necessarily in that order.

It all started so innocently. A friend asked if by any chance I was taking my car into Brighton and if so could she possibly scrounge a lift as she had some items to pick up.

One of the places she mentioned was Barclays Bank in North Street.

"No problem," said I merrily, as I flung the car into first gear and happily set out to fulfil our joint wishes.

First gear, unfortunately, was to be a gear with which I was to become very familiar over the next few hours.

We decided to start at the North Street Barclays Bank and so I took the right hand lane round the one-way system coming towards Preston Circus, intending to go up to New England Street towards Queens Road.

There seemed to be an inordinate amount of stationary traffic but we chatted as we slowly (very slowly) edged our way to North Road and eventually turned right to go to Church Street, bearing in mind you have to go round the houses since you cannot turn left or right at the traffic lights at Boots to use North Street.

That was our first misadventure. We became part of the biggest snarl-up on offer as the road was closed at the far end and all traffic was trying to turn around in a narrow road with cars parked on one side.

Someone had put a Road Closed sign in the wrong place and none of us appeared to have seen it until too late.

Onwards and upwards to the bank, however, now became impossible. After one or two gentlemanly discussions on my parenthood we got down to the London Road with the other branch of the bank in our sights.

And in our sights is where it remained for some time. We dodged cars and huge lorries who, in their turn were dodging holes in the road as every parking spot was occupied.

We drove round looking for the merest hint of space for a very small car and rashly I turned up a side road to take a short cut.

"Look out" yelled my, by now, thoroughly cowed passenger, as half a large tree came hurtling towards us, apparently from the heavens.

With nowhere to go I gritted my teeth and went for broke, barely missing a notice which warned me of tree cutting in this road - useful but a bit late, I felt.

We still had not reached the distant goal of the bank so I started on another circuit and ended up near Somerfields.

My friend said she would do her shopping there while I did a couple of other errands and off we both staggered. I got back to the car first and waited, and waited, and waited.

I was just considering calling out the FBI to search for a missing person when, breathless and exhausted, she appeared. Apparently in a fit of generosity she had not only done her shopping but, buoyed up by the thought of trying to get parked within a mile of the bank, she had set sail for the dreaming spires of the bank, which appeared like a mirage in a desert, distant and unreal.

The noble soul had walked, or probably trotted, to the branch and back and was now in obvious need of some resuscitation before death from express perambulation occurred. During our wanderings I actually lost count of the Road Up signs in this city of ours.

It seems that every junction, every main road in the shopping centre, every public service has yet another hole as a trap for the unwary.

To dig up everything in sight just as everyone is going Christmas shopping is not really the way to win friends and influence people, and little sneaky yellow notices on lamp posts warning of more to come is no substitute for a Happy Christmas from Santa Claus.

But from me, Happy Hole Hunting!