calc slowing to a crawl

users
#1

I have a spreadsheet that is about 500 rows long and about 20 columns wide. Column 1 is a date column.
I do not process the date in any cell formulas. When I hit December, about half way through the 500 rows, it tales about 15 seconds to enter a number in a blank field. This is new, as I have been using something similar for about 10 years. Even scrolling without entering data causes the sheet to come to a crawl.

Any thoughts? I noticed today at the bottom of the page, I added some lines and it showed the lines being 1024 columns long. Can this be shortened? Couldn't find anything in options.

Oh yes, xubuntu 15.04, 4 GB RAM, LO version 5.0.4.2

John