Nearly all the tales begin with "Once upon a time", but this one is different. It begins with "Once upon today…" because today Belinda intends to start all over again and Borgo Propizio, a village on a hill, in an Italy apparently a bit out of time, seems to her the ideal place to fulfill her dream: opening a diary. The small town is decayed and it is said that a restless ghost flutters over there but… who cares?!

The builder who is doing up the shop, a former cobbler's shop, is Ruggero: a rough character capable of building a whole cathedral or a skyscraper if only somebody would ask him (or he could be a poet, if he knew the verbs). His life is full of worries, among his old and bullying parents, tides loosing and ring finding, but also of happiness: his sudden love for Mariolina, who was afraid to become an old spinster in Borgo Propizio where she lives with her sister Marietta, a crochet artist. Their love immediately arouses a gossip chain: from the chatty Elvira to the cross-eyed Gemma, everybody talks about it, while in Belinda’s house the omnipresent Aunt Letizia plots plans, listening to the timeless songs of the Great Musician. In the meantime the works in the diary go on bringing surprises in everybody’s life…